Open AccessDistance sonification in image‐guided neurosurgery
Author(s) -
Plazak Joseph,
Drouin Simon,
Collins Louis,
KerstenOertel Marta
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
healthcare technology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.45
H-Index - 19
ISSN - 2053-3713
DOI - 10.1049/htl.2017.0074
Subject(s) - neuronavigation , computer science , sonification , computer vision , artificial intelligence , neurosurgery , image guided surgery , visualization , surgical instrument , medical physics , magnetic resonance imaging , medicine , human–computer interaction , radiology
Image‐guided neurosurgery, or neuronavigation, has been used to visualise the location of a surgical probe by mapping the probe location to pre‐operative models of a patient's anatomy. One common limitation of this approach is that it requires the surgeon to divert their attention away from the patient and towards the neuronavigation system. In order to improve this type of application, the authors designed a system that sonifies (i.e. provides audible feedback of) distance information between a surgical probe and the location of the anatomy of interest. A user study ( n = 15) was completed to determine the utility of sonified distance information within an existing neuronavigation platform (Intraoperative Brain Imaging System (IBIS) Neuronav). The authors’ results were consistent with the idea that combining auditory distance cues with existing visual information from image‐guided surgery systems may result in greater accuracy when locating specified points on a pre‐operative scan, thereby potentially reducing the extent of the required surgical openings, as well as potentially increasing the precision of individual surgical tasks. Further, the authors’ results were also consistent with the hypothesis that combining auditory and visual information reduces the perceived difficulty in locating a target location within a three‐dimensional volume.