Spatiotemporal reconstruction of the breathing function

Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2012;15(Pt 1):149-56. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-33415-3_19.

Abstract

Breathing waveform extracted via nasal thermistor is the most common method to study respiratory function in sleep studies. In essence, this is a temporal waveform of mean temperatures in the nostril region that at every time step collapses two-dimensional data into a single point. Hence, spatial heat distribution in the nostrils is lost along with valuable functional and anatomical cues. This article presents the construction and experimental validation of a spatiotemporal profile for the breathing function via thermal imaging of the nostrils. The method models nasal airflow advection by using a front-propagating level set algorithm with optimal parameter selection. It is the first time that the full two-dimensional advantage of thermal imaging is brought to the fore in breathing computation. This new multi-dimensional measure is likely to bring diagnostic value in sleep studies and beyond.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Algorithms
  • Diagnostic Imaging / methods
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Imaging, Three-Dimensional / methods
  • Male
  • Models, Statistical
  • Nasal Cavity / physiology
  • Nose / physiology
  • Respiration*
  • Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Sleep
  • Time Factors