Giovanni Savini (PhD student c/o the Department of Physics, Università degli studi di Milano) and Fulvia Palesi (Researcher c/o the Department of Physics, Università degli studi di Pavia) won the important international challenge “TraCED” organized by the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM). The challenge focused on the reconstruction of cerebral connections starting from magnetic resonance data. The two researchers submitted an original and innovative method for the reconstruction of tracts connecting cerebral regions (tractography) working with enthusiasm, creativity and commitment to research and proving international competitiveness. This research project is being developed within a collaboration between the Università degli studi di Milano (Prof. Alessandro Lascialfari) and the Brain Connectivity Center in Pavia (Prof. Claudia Gandini and Prof. Egidio d’Angelo).
38 teams from all over the world joined the challenge, but only 9 were able to complete the task and a total of 46 different algorithms were submitted. The one proposed by Savini and Palesi resulted the best on the basis of thorough evaluations.
Moreover, the young researchers distinguished themselves for their innovative scientific research at the ISMRM annual meeting in the USA. In particular, one of the submitted works, developed and presented by Giovanni Savini, won the “Summa cum Laude” award given to the best 5% of all accepted abstracts (over 5600).

First picture: the winner team, Savini (at the center with the trophy) and Palesi (on the left). Following pictures: images from their work.