Anne-Mari Vitikainen

Description of research and teaching

This page is not maintained since 5/2016.

My research interest are in the use of navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) in preoperative functional mappings and the quality assurance of clinical ultrasound examinations

My Ph.D. dissertation covered the use of nTMS in preoperative functional mappings for patients with epilepsy. In my thesis I described an nTMS mapping protocol suitable for clinical use and established the accuracy of motor cortical mappings by comparing the nTMS results with the results of direct electrical cortical stimulation. The accuracy was found to be sufficiently good for presurgical evaluation in patients with severe epilepsy. With this patient group, the nTMS technique enabled the mapping of abnormally excitable tissue, which bears an impact on the interpretation and reliability of the mappings as well.

In addition to the mapping of the primary motor cortical areas, the cortical areas related to speech are of key interest in the clinic. The methods for the reliable determination of the nTMS elicited speech-response latencies, their categorization and analysis, have been sparse. In the last part of this thesis, I developed a semi-automated algorithm for the speech-response latency difference calculation based on the accelerometer signal of the speech-response elicited vibrations of the larynx.

Based on the results presented in my thesis, nTMS is a reliable method for the mapping of the functional cortical areas pre-surgically in patients with severe epilepsy. It also enables the mapping of the abnormally excitable tissue. Permalink to my dissertation http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-51-1575-1

In the field of ultrasound imaging I have concentrated on the quality assurance of the clinical ultrasound devices. During the past few years, research is focused on to studying the write-off reasons of clinical ultrasound transducers. A project for developing flow calibration to be used in clinical Doppler ultrasound QA, was established and the effort in this field is going to continue.

Teaching

* Lecturer, University of Helsinki, Department of Physics: Ultrasound examinations, 2016
* Lecturer, Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences & HUS Medical Imaging Center: Ultrasound for sonographers, 2016
* Co-lecturer, University of Helsinki, Department of Physics: Clinical physiology & neurophysiology, 2011
* Lecturer, Helsinki Stadia University of Applied Sciences, 2008  
* Part-time teacher at University of Helsinki, Department of Physics: Exercise assistant during autumn terms 2001, 2002, 2005: Physics Approbatur I, spring terms 2002 and 2006: Physics approbatur II. 

Curriculum vitae

Physicist. January 2012 -
Helsinki University Hospital, HUS Medical Imaging Center
Description of work: Coordination of technical quality control of ultrasound devices, research & development of comprehensive and cost effective quality assurance protocol for clinical ultrasound.