From analog to digital: 3D models using AI for anatomical research

There was once a time, not so long ago, when scientists like Casey Holliday needed scalpels, scissors and even their own hands to conduct anatomical research. But now, with recent advances in technology, Holliday and his colleagues at the University of Missouri are using artificial intelligence (AI) to see inside an animal or a person — down to a single muscle fiber — without ever making a cut.

Holliday, an associate professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, said his lab in the MU School of Medicine is one of only a handful of labs in the world currently using this high-tech approach.

AI can teach computer programs to identify a muscle fiber in an image, such as a CAT scan. Then, researchers can use that data to develop detailed 3D computer models of muscles to better understand how they work together in the body for motor control, Holliday said.

Holliday, along with some of his current and former students, did that recently when they began to study the bite force of a crocodile.

“The unique thing about crocodile heads is that they are flat, and most animals that have evolved to bite really hard, like hyenas, lions, T. rexes and even humans have really tall skulls, because all those jaw muscles are oriented vertically,” Holliday said. “They’re designed that way so they put a big vertical bite force into whatever they’re eating. But a crocodile’s muscles are oriented more horizontally.”

The 3D models of muscle architecture could help the team determine how muscles are oriented in crocodile heads to help increase their bite force. Helping to lead this effort is one of Holliday’s former students, Kaleb Sellers, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago.

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