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Parkinson's Disease is characterized by alterations in deep brain structures and pathways involved in movement control. However, the understanding of neuroanatomy and spatial relationships of deep brain structures remains a challenge for medical students. Recent developments in information technology may help provide new instructional material that addresses this problem. This paper aims to develop an interactive and digital tool to enhance the study of the anatomical and functional neurological basis involved in Parkinson's Disease. This tool allows the organization and exploration of complex neuroanatomical contents related with Parkinson's Disease in an attractive and interactive way. Educational implications of this tool are analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the ability of a new real time volume rendering system using raw unprocessed CT data on a four processor Pentium® PC. A CT data set of the pelvic area was used to demonstrate the systems ability to integrate and visualize both data from a CT scan and a tracking system. The computer system consisted of a four processor Pentium® PC and the software tool VGInsight (Volume Graphics GmbH). For study purposes in a laboratory setting a magnetic tracking system (Polemus® Inc.) was used to simulate tracked surgical tools. With this new software tool and the tracking system the exact relative location of a tracked instrument within all structures of the pelvic area, soft tissue as well as bone, could be displayed in 3D and real time without preprocessing of the data set. Until recently real time volume rendering required expensive workstations. With a new software tool on a four processor Pentium® PC the authors were able to introduce a 3D real time processed data supply to the surgeon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]