Optics/​Photonics

A technology being developed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, promises to provide clear images of the brains of children, the elderly, and people with Parkinson's and other diseases without the use of uncomfortable or intrusive restraints. This new type of awake...

A new method of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could allow early identification of specific cancers, multiple sclerosis, heart disease, and other maladies, say researchers at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, and University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center. They explain that...

At the time of this writing I am just back from MD&M West in Anaheim. What a pleasure to meet with representatives from so many of the companies who have graced these pages and more still to come. This, coming right after BIOS/Photonics West in San Francisco, officially kicks off the medical device...

Ultrasound technology could soon be improved to produce high-quality, high-resolution images, thanks to the development of a new key material by a team of researchers in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University, College Station. The engineered material, known as a "metamaterial,"...

Engineers at Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN, are using a system of models to extract specific information from huge collections of data and then reconstructing images in order to improve the performance of technologies ranging from medical CT scanners to digital cameras. Their new approach is...

Neurological imaging experts at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, have figured out how owls, which can rotate their heads by as much as 270 degrees in either direction, do so without cutting off blood supply to their brains and without damaging the delicate blood vessels in their necks and...

University of California-Irvine neuroscientists have developed a unique method to stop severe episodes of epileptic seizures with fiber optic light signals. Using a mouse model of temporal lobe epilepsy, the research team created an EEG-based computer system that activates hair-thin optical strands implanted in...

At Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, scientists have demonstrated a new way of taking high-resolution, 3D images of the brain's inner workings by a three-fold improvement in the depth limits of multiphoton microscopy, a fluorescence-based imaging technique.

A group of researchers at Umeå University Center for Molecular Medicine in Sweden have developed a new biomedical imaging method using optical projection tomography (OPT) to study insulin-producing cells in diabetes. Initially the method could only be used on relatively small preparations, but five years ago...

Researchers at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, have developed an imaging system enclosed in a capsule about the size of a multivitamin pill that creates detailed, microscopic images of the esophageal wall and has several advantages over traditional...

Surgeons may soon be able to use a system in the operating room that recognizes hand gestures as commands to a computer to browse and display medical images of the patient during a surgery. Researchers at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, are creating a system that uses depth-sensing cameras and...