VR Neuroanatomy

Understanding the anatomy of complex organs such as the human brain can be a challenge for students, so there is a definite advantage given to students who can experience the structures in a spatial way through real or virtual experiences. Since 2016, the Marquette Visualization Lab has been utilizing a dataset of 3 and 7 Tesla MRI scans from the Structural Informatics Group at University of Washington to visualize the structures of the brain in their Cave, utilizing the Unity game engine and 10 stereoscopic 3D projectors. Most MRI scans are presented as a volumetric rendering, but this dataset is unique because it was fully labelled and parcellated, allowing lab users to not only view the structures of the brain, but also virtually dissect it in a large scale, collaborative virtual reality environment. This year, in the interest of making the learning experience more mobile and accessible, the visualization was ported to the Oculus Quest.