ATHENA V1.0 and the previously released MARTIN V1.0 are important additions to the Virtual Population (ViP) library, especially for researchers working with pediatric patients. Like MARTIN V1.0, ATHENA V1.0 was developed at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, USA. The Martinos Center is a renowned research group with expertise in biomedical imaging, simulation, and the creation of high-quality simulation models.
The development and validation data of ATHENA V1.0 are described in the recent paper by Georgios Ntolkeras and colleagues published in Physics in Medicine & Biology. The numerical whole-body model of a 3.5-year-old female includes 267 organs and tissues; 50 structures in the brain were segmented from high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography images. Details about the segmentation techniques and validation are also provided in the paper.
By adding ATHENA V1.0 and MARTIN V1.0 to the IT’IS ViP library, the models will be widely available to the scientific community for pediatric research and research in other areas. ATHENA V1.0 is distributed as STL files (the open file format is supported by all major simulation and computer-aided design tools and as a Sim4Life-specific file that has material properties that are pre-assigned using the IT’IS Tissue Properties Database.
For more information on ATHENA V1.0, contact us at virtualpopulation@itis.swiss.