iSurgARy
Global disparities in neurosurgical care necessitate innovations addressing affordability and accuracy, particularly for critical procedures like ventriculostomy. This intervention, vital for managing life-threatening intracranial pressure increases, is associated with catheter misplacement rates exceeding 30\% when using a freehand technique. Such misplacements hold severe consequences including haemorrhage, infection, prolonged hospital stays,...
Breamy: AR for surgical decision-making in breast cancer
Deciding on breast cancer treatment, includes the choice between surgical options, frequently demands decision-making within an 8-week timeframe. However, many women lack the necessary knowledge and preparation for making informed decisions. Anxiety and unsatisfactory outcomes can result from inadequate decision-making processes, leading to decisional regret and revision surgeries. Shared decision-making...
Multiple Sclerosis Image-Guided Subcutaneous Injections Using Augmented Reality Guided Imagery
In this project we explore how new technologies can be used to improve Multiple Sclerosis (MS) treatment. Treatment of MS most often includes self-injecting medicine under the skin or into a muscle. The injections can make a patients skin sore, red, itchy, and even cause pain, thus many patients suffer...
AR for Mastectomy Planning
In breast reconstruction following a single mastectomy, the surgeon needs to choose between tens of available implants to find the one that can reproduce symmetry of the patient’s breasts. However, due to lack of measurement tools this decision is made purely visually, which means the surgeon has to order multiple implants...
VR for Exploring Connectivity Data
In the field of ``connectomics", virtual reality can allow you to immerse yourself in a three-dimensional representation of the brain connectome, where you can freely navigate and interact with different brain regions and their connections. This immersive experience can facilitate a deeper understanding of the brain's complex network and its...
LapBot
LapBot is a game aimed at looking at how AI annotations of safe and not safe dissection zones in laparoscopic cholosystechtomy (i.e. gallbladder removal) can impact training. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is one of the most commonly performed procedures in the United States and across the world. Within this context, we focus...
Low cost surgical tools
The evolution of consumer-grade hardware components (e.g. trackers, portable ultrasound probes) has opened the door for the development of low cost systems. We are working on developing low cost systems to make the more accessible. Related publications: Léger, É.*, Gueziri, H., Collins, L., Popa, T., & Kersten-Oertel, M. (2021). Evaluation...
Real-time motion detection for physical fitness & rehabilitation
The evolution of digitally connected devices and artificial intelligence has opened the door for novel health and fitness applications that can be used by individuals at a time and in an environment convenient to them. The purpose of our research is to develop low cost and accessible platforms that requires...
Federated Learning & Privacy Preserving AI
Federated learning is a machine learning approach for the training of artificial intelligence models distributed across multiple locations. In this context, the learning of features occurs at individual locations with the data available on-premise and thus data privacy is preserved. The collaborative learning experience in federated learning results in exceptional...
Gamification and Multimodal Cueing in Physiotherapy
Advances in mobile devices have made possible the adherence to healthy lifestyles and workout routines with less supervision from a professional, for example, a strength trainer or physiotherapist. Mobile health games in particular can help individuals with chronic conditions and disabilities who require physiotherapy and rehabilitation to stay motivated and...
Gamification in Medical Image Visualization
The mobile app Connect Brain was developed by Andrey Titov for both Android and iOS devices with the goal of comparing different vessel visualization techniques. The user study was performed in the form of gamification to acquire a bigger crowd of potential participants. The app features two games: one which...
Push Notifications for Fitness
Mobile push notifications are a common means to send messages from a mobile application to the user’s device. These messages can have different purposes and may be received at any time of the day in different modalities on a smart device. In this work, we seek to answer how to...
Gaze-based Interaction
Gaze-based applications enable hands-free interactions that are suitable for users with disabilities, children, or the elderly for their basic needs. However, these kinds of interactions suffer from several limitations and challenges. One of the main challenges of gaze-based interactions is the ability to distinguish normal eye function from a deliberate...
Computer Aided Diagnosis in Stroke
Stroke is the second leading cause of disability worldwide. In order to minimize disability, the goal of stroke treatment is to preserve tissue in the area where blood supply is decreased but sufficient to stave off cell death. Thrombectomy has been shown to offer fast and efficient reperfusion with high...
Mobile Augmented Reality for IGNS (MARIN)
Mobile Augmented Reality Interactive Neuronavigator (MARIN) Neuronavigation systems making use of augmented reality (AR) have been the focus of much research in the last couple of decades. In recent years, there has been considerable interest in using mobile devices for AR in the operating room (OR). We propose a complete...
Sonification in Image-guided Surgery
One challenge facing image-guided surgery systems is the problem of presenting 3D information on a 2D surface. As a potential solution, we are investigating the utility of sonification (transforming data into sound) for providing real-time and continuous distance information within the context of image-guided surgery. More specifically, we are interested...
Cognitive load (using EEG) when utilizing auditory display in IGS
The combination of data visualization and auditory display (e.g., sonification) has been shown to increase accuracy, and reduce perceived difficulty, within 3D navigation tasks. While accuracy within such tasks can be measured in real time, subjective impressions about the difficulty of a task are more elusive to obtain. Prior work...
Medical Image Visualization
Appropriate visualization of scientific data can significantly improve understanding of the information captured within the data. In the context of 3D medical images (e.g. MRI, CT, angiography) proper visualization has the potential of making anatomical features perceptible to medical practitioners and can aid in the spatial understanding of anatomy and...
AR in Image-guided Neurosurgery
Augmented reality images are difficult to interpret in terms of depth because the virtual or computer-generated part of the image tends to look like it is floating above the real world. In the proposed research, rendering methods that account for the discrepancy in real and virtual images and which improve...