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Virtual reality heralds great leap in understanding of the brain

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Ever wonder what it would be like to walk through your own brain?

Chelsea Ekstrand has done just that, thanks to the wonders of virtual reality — and she’s not the only one.

“There’s been more people walking in my brain than I think most people can safely say they’ve had,” she said. 

Ekstrand is a Ph.D student in psychology at the University of Saskatchewan, studying cognition and neuroscience. 

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Two years ago, Dr. Ivar Mendez recruited her and a colleague to help develop a 3D model of a brain — hers — based on MRI scans to help him plan a particularly tricky brain surgery. She had no background in those computer programs and taught herself through trial and error.

This year, Mendez needed her help again — to translate those MRIs into a language that could be used by Sprockety, a local company that specializes in virtual reality.

A computer program could create some sections itself from the MRI, but some she had to draw herself, voxel by voxel. Particularly challenging were the noodle-like structures that connect different parts of the brain, she said, adding it was “shockingly” hard to get those files into the formats Sprockety could use, but she ultimately prevailed.

The first iteration was just a ventricle and a cortex, but Ekstrand soon found herself walking through an increasingly realistic brain. 

“It was very weird to do it and it just got weirder as you started adding different structures. I remember I had a moment when I was tracking my sensory tract of my brain, and I was like, ‘Holy crap, this is literally how I am feeling right now.’ ”

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A virtual reality model of a brain. Ivar Mendez says VR will allow for better education and new surgical procedures.
A virtual reality model of a brain. Ivar Mendez says VR will allow for better education and new surgical procedures. Photo by Submitted photo /-

Mendez arranged for a StarPhoenix reporter to take a spin in the brain. The user dons a visor and holds a controller similar to a Nintendo Wii remote in each hand — it feels like stepping onto the holodeck on the Starship Enterprise. As you walk around the room, you can reach out and highlight a certain structure and make it disappear, or rotate the entire brain, or zoom way in and see it from the inside out.

Bruce Cory and Tod Baudais started Sprockety hoping their technical expertise in virtual reality could be a disruptive force. The CEO of Innovation Saskatchewan suggested they contact Mendez, a “pioneer” in robotics who would likely be interested.

When they did, they learned he had already been involved with the development of a 3D brain, “and it just so happened that what they had done on that side of things melded well with the software we had built. So it was really a perfect marriage,” Cory said.

The virtual reality brain is their first big project as Sprockety, though Baudais and Cory go back years. Baudais spent eight years working on animation and video games in Toronto.

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“All the other projects I’ve done have been entertainment and this is actually nice because it seems like it’s going to help people instead of waste people’s time. So that’s a really good change,” he said.

Also present for the demo were four second-year medical students to explain why virtual reality is such a big step. They think a virtual reality brain is a better teaching tool than a two-dimensional textbook drawing.

“It’s such a complex structure, with things so deep, it’s a lot harder for medical students to understand and grasp the spatial relationships of things in the brain,” Jenna Mann said.

“The brain is very hard to visualize, even for me,” Ron Nuygen added. “I’ve taken a few anatomy courses and with those 2D images it’s still very hard for me to visualize. But I spent just 20 minutes a couple months ago with this program and still I’m able to visualize where those things are. It’s in your mind’s eye — you can play around with it, you can touch it.”

Since the brain is a soft organ, a tumour can deform it, Mendez said. A second model shows a tumour as a bright red mass on the underside of the brain of a patient.

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The virtual reality model allows surgeons to understand that anatomical change and perform more complex procedures in more vital areas, Mendez said.

“Traditionally, surgical techniques have advanced by inventing new procedures in real time on patients. In the past there were no models, there were no computer simulations, we just did trial and error. So what the virtual reality environment allows us to do is to look at different approaches to surgery that can be trailed in a virtual reality environment.

“I’m not talking only about the structures that you’ve seen, but the actual function of the brain. For example, in a virtual reality environment, as you cut the skin it will bleed, and you will be able to see the potential hazards or the potential complications of a new surgical procedure.”

Ekstrand said the advancements her brain has spurred make her feel good.

“It’s nice to know there is going to be an almost immediate application for this work.”

jcharlton@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/J_Charlton

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