Functional Imaging and Modeling of the Heart

The ?rst international conference on Functional Imaging and Modeling of the 1 Heart (FIMH) was held in Helsinki, Finland, in November 2001, thanks to the strongscienti?ccollaborationbetweenFranceandFinland. Thiseventwasa?rst attempt to federate the heart imaging community and to encourage collabo- tion between scientists in signal and image processing, applied mathematics and physics, biomedical engineering and computer science, and experts in card- logy, radiology, biology, and physiology, in Europe and beyond. The conference has encountered considerable success. The outstanding research works pres- ted have demonstrated a very active research ?eld with complex modeling and image analysis problems to be solved. One of the outcomes was the special issue of the Medical Image Analysis journal based on a selection of the conference's best papers, to appear in the second half of 2003. The FIMH 2001 meeting was the starting point of a discussion for federating the European research e?ort in cardiac imaging, heart modeling, and cardiac image analysis. It was very successful, and a large coalition was created around 2 the e-Heart proposal for a Network of Excellence in the European Sixth Fra- work Program. The e-Heart network has already gathered about 200 researchers from 100 institutes. A project proposal has been submitted to the European Union. It was decided in the ?rst meeting to organize a regular biennial conference.

Inhalt
Invited Speakers.- Tagged MRI-Based Studies of Cardiac Function.- A Novel Method for Quantifying the Contribution of Different Intracellular Mechanisms to Mechanically Induced Changes in Action Potential Characteristics.- Session 1: Anatomy Extraction and Description.- Automatic Construction of Biventricular Statistical Shape Models.- Visualising Cardiac Anatomy Using Constructive Volume Geometry.- Evaluation of a 3D Segmentation Software for the Coronary Characterization in Multi-slice Computed Tomography.- A Levelset Based Method for Segmenting the Heart in 3D+T Gated SPECT Images.- Session 2: Modeling of the Cardiac Mechanics and Functions.- Modeling of Electro-mechanical Coupling in Cardiac Myocytes: Feedback Mechanisms and Cooperativity.- Simulating Cardiac Mechanoenergetics in the Left Ventricle.- Towards Patient Specific Models of Cardiac Mechanics: A Sensitivity Study.- Does the Collagen Network Contribute to Normal Systolic Left Ventricular Wall Thickening? A Theoretical Study in Continuum Mechanics.- Session 3: Electro-physiology, Electro-, and Magnetography.- Regularization in Cardiac Source Imaging.- On the Influence of a Volume Conductor on the Orientation of Currents in a Thin Cardiac issue.- First 36-Channel Magnetocardiographic Study of CAD Patients in an Unshielded Laboratory for Interventional and Intensive Cardiac Care.- Heterogeneous Sinoatrial Node of Rabbit Heart - Molecular and Electrical Mapping and Biophysical Reconstruction.- Session 4: Motion Estimation.- Construction of a Cardiac Motion Atlas from MR Using Non-rigid Registration.- Motion-Compensation of Cardiac Perfusion MRI Using a Statistical Texture Ensemble.- Measuring Myocardial Deformations in Tagged MR Image Sequences Using Informational Non-rigid Registration.- Parametric Analysis ofMain Motion to Study the Regional Wall Motion of the Left Ventricle in Echocardiography.- Modeling and Tracking of the Cardiac Left Ventricular Motion by a State Space Harmonic Model in MRI Sequence.- Session 5: Image Registration and Image Analysis.- A Strategy to Quantitatively Evaluate MRI/PET Cardiac Rigid Registration Methods Using a Monte Carlo Simulator.- Spatio-temporal Alignment of 4D Cardiac MR Images.- Automatic Registration of MR First-Pass Myocardial Perfusion Images.- Evaluation and Comparison of Surface and Intensity Based Rigid Registration Methods for Thorax and Cardiac MR and PET Images.- Left Ventricular Flow Dynamics and Transmural Gradients in Myofiber Shortening with MRI-Tagging.- Intravascular Ultrasound Images Vessel Characterization Using AdaBoost.- Motion Analysis of 3D Ultrasound Texture Patterns.- Session 6: Data Acquisition, Experimental, and Modeling Studies.- Estimation of the Diastolic Intraventricular Relative Pressures Using MRI Acceleration Measurements.- Magnetic Resonance Fusion Imaging of Chronic Myocardial Ischemia.- The Relationship between Regional Integrated Backscatter Levels and Regional Strain in Normal, Acutely Ischemic, and Reperfused Myocardium.- Why Ischemic Hearts Respond Less to Cardiac Resynchronisation Therapy. A Modeling Study.- Finite Element Models for Mechanical Simulation of Coronary Arteries.