Augmented reality visualization of MRI-guided presurgical planning.

Presurgical planning is necessary to maximize patient safety, to avoid eloquent cortex, and to reduce postoperative deficits. Traditionally, surgeons rely on the segmentation of anatomical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to plan their surgical trajectory, although the incorporation of multimodal data is on the increase. Multimodal MRI techniques such as diffusion weighted derived structural connectivity (SC) and resting-state functional MRI derived functional connectivity (FC), have been shown to be useful metrics for computing minimally invasive approaches. These metrics may be used to provide visuospatial landmarks and context, but lso to identify eloquent cortex. Several simulators exist for training, however many of them do not factor in SC and FC and are based mainly on structural representation of the brain. In this study we propose, a low cost, hand-held multi-use augmented reality (AR) simulator that allows the user to test different surgical paths based on multimodal visualization, and evaluate the damage caused by the tested trajectory.

Recommended citation: Kikinov, D., Pur, D.R., Eagleson, R., de Ribaupierre, S. (2020). "Augmented reality visualization of MRI-guided presurgical planning.." IJCARS. 1(2). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-020-02171-6