Por Ricardo Vigário (LIBPhys-UNL, NOVA School of Science and Technology).

Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) is the most common cause of vascular cognitive impairment and dementia. I will be presenting two different technological approaches to study/evaluate SVD, rooted on MRI data analyses. The first is based on a segmentation and classification perspective. The second targets blood flow estimates. White matter lesions (WML) are the core marker of SVD on brain imaging, together with lacunar infarcts, microbleeds, and brain atrophy. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been the standard method in evaluating WML. Despite significant recent improvements in quantitative image analysis techniques, one of the major obstacles in MRI is still its finite spatial resolution, which leads to partial volume effects. In this study, a Machine Learning approach helps reveal "pre-visible" and "early stage" WML indications. The second angle of research targets MRI 4D angiography, a powerful tool to study the dynamics of blood flow in arteries, veins, and venous sinuses. Within this approach, we will see estimates of vascular hemodynamic parameters such as Pulsatility Index, Wall Stress, Pressure Drops, and Pulse Wave Velocity.

Short Bio: Prof. Ricardo Vigário is a tenured Associate Professor, with Habilitation, at the Physics Department of NOVA School of Science and Technology, and a researcher at LIBPhys-UNL, in its biomedical engineering line. He has graduated in Applied Physics, and holds a postgraduate Masters Degree in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering and a doctorate in Computer Sciences. Professor Vigário has extensive teaching and research work in the development of machine learning approaches to the analysis of biomedical data, as well as their application in clinical contexts. He has been involved in the processing of time series recordings, such as electrophysiological data, as well as in biomedical image analysis. He has published around 100 full paper refereed scientific works, in journals, books and conferences. Some of those are international references in their field. During his two decades at Aalto University, Finland, Professor Vigário was responsible for teaching and research in neuroinformatics and led a research group in that area. He has also been a visiting professor in Berlin, Germany; Gratz, Austria; and Grenoble, France. He has supervised 1 Post-Doctoral researcher, 5 Doctor of Science and over 35 MSc students.