3D printing organs and body parts to serve as surgical aids is a trend that has been gathering steam within the industry for some time now. Just last week, 3DPI reported on how doctors in the UK have had the rare opportunity to replicate a brain from London’s Wellcome Collection and use it to aid in training. The Jichi Medical University School of Medicine in Japan have also been using models 3D printed in ABS for neurosurgery classes.

New approaches to the fabrication of surgical models are being tried all the time and Utah based company Whiteclouds have recently launched segmented models of a patient’s MRI as a new method in their 3D-as-a-service business.

A segmented brain model showing the structure of a patient's combined MRI & CT scan. Photo via: Whiteclouds 3DYourSCAN

A segmented brain model showing the structure of a patient’s combined MRI & CT scan. Photo via: Whiteclouds 3DYourSCAN

3DPI was eager to discover how valuable these 3D printed models are to the area of neuroscience, and if they really are worth all of this effort. So we asked Dr. Saleem Abdulrauf, a neuroscience expert working with Stratasys Direct Manufacturing, about his experience with the models.

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