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Simona joined the largest conference in the field of MRI to give a talk about the Directional Derivative method. She shared recent developments and results with the international MRI community.
The work received the “Magna cum laude” award by the organizing committee, and won the third best abstract prize in the field of MRI for Neuromodulation. Such an honor! 🏆 🚀
Beyond the recognition, the conference offered invaluable opportunities for scientific exchange, networking, and constructive feedback. The spirit of collaboration and openness truly reflected the concept of Ubuntu — “I am because we are.”
We attended the Inaugural conference of the IST in Bordeaux. In this important moment for the tractography scientific community, our research didn’t go unnoticed! Dr. Aydogan also had the pleasure of organizing this event.
Our work was welcomed with interest and enthusiasm, and Simona was awarded the first place prize for her pitch!
With such a focused, collaborative and hand-on spirit, we are looking forward for IST’s future events, and we’re proud to be an active part of this community!
We are excited to share that Joonas Laurinoja has been awarded personal funding of 34,000 € from the Emil Aaltonen Foundation.
This prestigious funding will support Joonas’ ongoing research on the development of a multi-modal imaging-guided brain stimulation system. The project aims to advance precision and effectiveness in brain stimulation technologies, contributing to both scientific understanding and potential future clinical applications.
We are grateful to the Emil Aaltonen Foundation for their recognition and support of this important research, and we look forward to the progress this funding will enable.
Simona had the pleasure of participating in the 11th Science Factory: TMS–EEG Summer School and Workshop, organized by Aalto University’s Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering. The fast paced-event brought together researchers from around the world to exchange ideas, dive into hands-on TMS–EEG sessions, and explore new directions in brain stimulation research.
The school is an incredible opportunity to build deep and actionable knowledge in TMS–EEG from the ground up, thanks to expert mentoring and an incredibly engaging atmosphere. Ready to apply this knowledge to our own research!
Research
Recent projects
Funded by the Technology Industries of Finland Centennial Foundation, this Future Makers project is developing AI-based brain stimulation as a therapy for hard-to-treat depression. It is an example of a theranostic-like system that integrates diagnostics with therapy. Using AI, we are integrating tractography into our novel closed-loop TMS-EEG-MRI system allowing the treatment to be personalized to the individual needs of each patient.
In our Academy of Finland funded (#348631, #353798), GUIDE-IN-TMS project , we are developing an MRI-guided major depression disorder treatment planning method using individualized, network-targeted TMS. To achieve this we are building a novel system that we named the "dual-closed-loop TMS-EEG-MRI", where we adjust TMS parameters using feedback from both EEG and fMRI in (near) real time.
In this project, we developed a real-time tractography-assisted TMS neuronavigation system. Key features include the application of state-of-the-art tractography practices, the ability to tune tractography parameters on the fly, and the display of thousands of new streamlines every few seconds using a novel uncertainty visualization technique. Click the video for a demonstration of our system. A preprint can be accessed from here.
Trekker is an open-source fiber-tracking software that is used by many research groups around the world. It estimates structural connections in the brain using diffusion MRI data using the parallel transport tractography (PTT) algorithm. We used Trekker and won awards in all the international tractography competitions organized since 2017. In 2021 MICCAI CDMRI tractography challenge, all the top three teams used Trekker.