THE INTEGRATION OF DETAILED 3-DIMENSIONAL ANATOMICAL DATA FOR THE QUANTITATIVE DESCRIPTION OF 3-DIMENSIONAL VIBRATION OF A BIOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. AN ILLUSTRATION FROM THE MIDDLE EAR

摘要

Vibration of biological structures is often measured in a reference system that is imposed on the investigator by the accessibility of the object. This imposes a serious handicap on the usability of the results. A method is presented that measures the 3-D components of vibration of the structure and integrates complete 3-D anatomy in the data analysis. A realistic3-D anatomical model of the tested structure is used to determine coordinate transformations and express the motion parameters in intrinsic object reference systems. Results from different experiments can now be unequivocally compared and predictions of mathematical models can accurately be checked. Animations of the vibrating structure can be made to study the motion from all angles, even those not accessible during the experiments. One can also calculate the ratio of vibration amplitudes at different landmark points, check whether the structure has a fixed rotation axis, or calculate the vibration along an observation axis that was used in experiments with a completely different experimental approach. We present as an example a study on the vibration of the malleus. The application of our procedure is not limited to problems in the biomedical research area, but it is of general use in [bio-] engineering applications.