High-Performance Monte Carlo Simulations for Photon Migration and Applications in Optical Brain Functional Imaging

The human brain is a complex biological organ that is extremely challenging to study. Non-invasive optical scanning has been effective in exploring brain functions and diagnosing brain diseases. However, given the complexity of the human brain anatomy, quantitative analysis of optical brain imaging data has been challenging due to the extensive computation needed to solve the generalized models. In this chapter, we discuss Monte Carlo eXtreme (MCX), a computationally efficient and numerically accurate Monte Carlo photon simulation package. Leveraging the benefits of GPU-based parallel computing. MCX allows researchers to use 3D anatomical scans from MRI or CT to perform accurate photon transport simulations. Compared to conventional Monte Carlo (MC) methods, MCX provides a dramatic speed improvement of two to three orders of magnitude, thanks largely to the massively parallel threads enabled by modern GPU architectures.