Available

Project reference

2024_P31_Xie_Shapey

Start date

June or October 2025

First Academic supervisor

Dr Yijing Xie

First Clinical supervisor

Dr Jonathan Shapey

4

Back to projects

Optical neural imaging system for guiding brain tumour surgery

In brain tumour surgeries, the ‘gold standard’ is to perform a maximal safe resection. In this context, two critical goals need to be achieved: i) to differentiate and remove tumour, ii) to identify and preserve the adjacent brain regions with important functions. Early studies have demonstrated that multispectral optical imaging has the potential to detect brain functions in patients during surgical interventions. However, its ability to detect external stimulation-provoked functional activities (e.g. resulting from external electrical stimulation or visual input) in tumour-bearing brain during surgery hasn’t been explored. The aim of this project is to develop an intraoperative optical imaging system optimised for sensing neural activities in cortical regions, subcortical white matter tracts, and cranial nerves. The system will be able to provide brain surgeon with accurate functional mapping in real-time based on the multispectral technology, allowing safer surgery thus preventing any post-surgical neurological deficits.