QUICK FACTS
Dr. Charles DeCarli at The Alzheimer’s Disease Center at the University of Kansas uses PV-WAVE’s Visual Data Analysis (VDA) platform. His applications in PV-WAVE became the cornerstone of a major grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). The research grant focused on structural brain changes in healthy, aging patients and patients with Alzheimer's and vascular diseases. They were able to use PV-WAVE to implement and modify algorithms and analyze over 400 MRI images.

THE PROBLEM
The Alzheimer's Disease Center at the University of Kansas diagnoses and provides clinical care to patients with Alzheimer's disease. In addition, the Center supports and engages in clinical and basic science research and promotes education related to the disease.

Dr. Charles DeCarli, an associate professor of neurology at the university and director of the Alzheimer's Disease center, developed a patented, Fortran-based algorithm for quantifying brain volumes from magnetic resonance images (MRIs). After discovering Visual Numeric's PV-WAVE at a National Institute of Health technology fair, DeCarli shifted his quantification algorithm to PV-WAVE's Visual Data Analysis (VDA) platform.

The PV-WAVE application of DeCarli's algorithm became the cornerstone of a $2.7 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) on "Cerebral Vascular Risk Factors and Brain Morphology in Twins." The research grant focused on structural brain changes in healthy, aging patients and patients with Alzheimer's and vascular diseases.

"This project is one of the first to document normal changes in brain regions. We discovered that people don't lose brain tissue evenly," said DeCarli. "Our research documented the difference in brain morphology between men and women, and the effects of estrogen on the brain. As people age, men lose more brain tissue from the frontal lobe; women lose more in the parietal lobe and the hippocampus. These brain patterns are the same with Alzheimer's disease."

THE SOLUTION
DeCarli selected PV-WAVE from Visual Numerics because the tool doesn't force him to apply visualization matrices in any specific way. "With PV-WAVE's built in flexibility, I can utilize general purpose functions and customize my own widgets. PV-WAVE's language is so easy to use, I can put complicated images together with very little effort," he explained.

DeCarli applies statistical analyses to his data for visualization purposes. "PV-WAVE allows me to remove nonbrain tissue from an image. I reorient or correct the images so they're homogeneous," he said.

In addition, DeCarli customizes PV-WAVE widgets to view mathematical arrays. Because MRIs add spatial shading, or "noise," to images, DeCarli needed to apply a customized mathematical array to sample images to identify and correct the shading. He accomplished this by modifying the PV-WAVE Region of Interest (ROI) tool. This change allowed him to clearly identify brain versus nonbrain regions within MRIs.

RETURN ON INVESTMENT
"PV-WAVE has enabled me to implement and modify algorithms and analyze complex data sets easily. My current project involves over 400 MRI images, which is the largest published quantification series in this research area to date. PV-WAVE allows me, as a single user, to update a complicated system easily," said DeCarli. "PV-WAVE's strength is the ability to easily customize visualization tools and to create new functions for analyzing data. I can also produce reports by writing data from PV-WAVE to a comma-delimited text file, which I import into Microsoft Excel® for further manipulation and charting."

DeCarli has received telephone calls from researchers from around the world who have asked how he was able to produce these types of images. He now collaborates with national and international Alzheimer's researchers who are also using PV-WAVE on their projects.

DeCarli's technical papers describing the above manipulation of brain images using his patented algorithms applied through PV-WAVE have been published in over 12 journals, including the Journal for Computer Assisted Tomography, the Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Neurology magazine.

WORLD CLASS PRODUCTS, SERVICES, AND SUPPORT
Visual Numerics has provided technical software solutions for numerical analysis and visualization for over 30 years. The company's software products help users understand complex data from a variety of sources and build business-critical applications. Visual Numerics offers two product lines: the IMSL® Numerical Libraries for powerful mathematical and statistical analysis and the PV-WAVE® visual data analysis development environment. Visual Numerics also offers customized consulting services for applications that involve mathematical, statistical, or visual data analysis to meet today’s business analytical needs.