Fractal analysis in the quantification of medical imaging associated with multiple sclerosis pathology

Maria-Alexandra Paun; Mihai-Virgil Nichita; Vladimir-Alexandru Paun; Viorel-Puiu Paun

doi:10.31083/j.fbl2702066

Fractal analysis in the quantification of medical imaging associated with multiple sclerosis pathology

Front Biosci (Landmark Ed). 2022 Feb 14;27(2):66. doi: 10.31083/j.fbl2702066.

Authors

Maria-Alexandra Paun^{1

2}, Mihai-Virgil Nichita³, Vladimir-Alexandru Paun⁴, Viorel-Puiu Paun^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland.
² Division Radio Monitoring and Equipment, Section Market Access and Conformity, Federal Office of Communications OFCOM, Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications DETEC, 2501 Bienne, Canton of Bern, Switzerland.
³ Doctoral School, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University Politehnica of Bucharest, 060042 Bucharest, Romania.
⁴ Five Rescue Research Laboratory, 75004 Paris, France.
⁵ Physics Department, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University Politehnica of Bucharest, 060042 Bucharest, Romania.
⁶ Academy of Romanian Scientists, 50085 Bucharest, Romania.

PMID: 35227009
DOI: 10.31083/j.fbl2702066

Abstract

Backgrounds: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inveterate phlogistic situation characterized by focal and vaguely diffusive de-myelination and neurodegeneration, in the sphere of central nervous system (CNS). The brain's chronic inflammatory reaction includes astrocyte stimulation and microglial motivation, as well as macrophages marginal conscription. This lasting serious soreness of the brain is connected with neurodegeneration period and disability advance.

Methods: The present study is considering two main purposes as follows. Primarily, to apply the fractal analysis in the idea of documenting the fractals dominance at all stages of the nervous system hierarchy, giving faith to the precept of their funciar relevancy. Secondly, to take into account the problems unresolved of the thorough connections between self-organized criticality concept and self-similarity notion. More precisely, in reality we will obtain information about the fractal size and lacunarity of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), on the areas of interest of the brain, rich in microglial cells with fringes from peripheral macrophages cells.

Results: This approach will play a decisive role in the action of detecting neural disabilities, such as in particular multiple sclerosis cortical onset, the final goal of our investigation. The diagnosis is based on interpretation of both histological sample pictures and images obtained by nuclear magnetic resonance. Using fractal analysis, we have calculated, for each image separately, both the fractal dimension and the lacunarity, as an objective quantitative measure of the demyelinating action.

Conclusions: For three histopathological samples on glial cells, with visible erosions, the fractal dimension has value over 1.89 and the lacunarity value is between 0.050 and 0.079. In the gray level stages of the studied MRI pictures, the fractal dimension is above the value of 1.7 and the lacunarity is between the values of 0.0286 and 0.0393.

Keywords: box-counting; fractal analysis; lacunarity; microglial inflammation; multiple sclerosis.

MeSH terms

Brain / diagnostic imaging
Fractals*
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods
Multiple Sclerosis* / diagnostic imaging