Virtual cadavers: Biology class goes 3-D – Green Bay Press Gazette

West De Pere High School is the first in Wisconsin to use a virtual 3-D dissection device featuring human and animal cadavers. Wochit

West De Pere High School anatomy students have a unique tool to help them learn the intricacies of the human body. The Anatomage Table Alpha shows detailed anatomical images and allows freehand virtual dissection. Students Caroline Kandravi, left, and Sam Ricker used the tool Thursday in Ashley Anthon's college-credit human anatomy and physiology class.(Photo: Jim Matthews/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)Buy Photo

DE PERE Students in Ashley Anthons human anatomy and physiology classes at West De Pere High School took a field trip to Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay on Monday.

They went there to see, touch and examine human cadavers in a science lab.

For the last two months, however, those same West De Pere students have been dissecting all kinds of human as well as animal body parts without leaving Anthons classroom.

West De Pere is the first high school in Wisconsin to use a virtual 3-D dissection device made by Anatomage, a medical imaging company in San Jose, Calif.

Its pretty cool stuff, senior Sam Ricker said as he operated the machine in class last week.

Known as the Anatomage Table Alpha, the hands-on visualization tool is a high-tech addition to classes that still include old-school teaching methods such as textbooks and anatomical models.

Last week, Ricker and other classmates set aside their laboratory manuals as they stepped up to the Table Alpha in the back of the classroom to prepare for an exam on the nervous system.

Within seconds of tapping the large interactive screen that sits a few feet off the ground on a pedestal, the probing learners were looking at real-life images of a brain, membranes and spinal nerves that includedhelpful annotations.

I think its just a different way of learning, Ricker said. Some people are more hands-on, which I am. I like to physically see whats going on versus learning right out of the textbook, that sometimes you dont get the same experience."

Were pretty fortunate to have anything like this, at all, because not many schools have this, he added.

Phil Mansour, an engineer withAnatomage, said West De Pere is one of only 14 high schools or school districtsin the United States that has one of the companys anatomical imaging tools.

The West De Pere School District spent $50,000 onthe Table Alpha, a smaller version of the Anatomage Table, a larger examining table with a full virtual cadaver on the screen.The Anatomage Table has gained worldwide appeal at colleges and universities, medical schools and hospitals. NWTC and Bellin College in Bellevue have the larger tables.

Anthon became familiar with the device through West De Peres partnership with NWTC. With the support of school Principal Russ Gerke, she asked the school board to fund a table in her classroom.

The administration approved the request, and the district budgeted the cost for the Table Alpha. Representatives from Anatomage installed the system during the winter, and it was up and running for Anthons anatomy classes after the holiday break.

We just figured it was important for our kids, said John Zegers, the West De Pere superintendent. The kids really love it. Its amazing.

The West De Pere students who have taken an anatomy class the latter half of this school year have received enhanced instruction on the ins and outs of the human body with the Anatomage device.

The Anatomage Table Alpha being used in anatomy classes at West De Pere High School enables students to study different layers of the human body with an interactive 3-D screen that sits on a pedestal.(Photo: Courtesy of Anatomage Inc.)

We can see different layers (on a cadaver), Ricker said. We can see the organs, and we can come out even farther, we can see the muscles on top of the skeleton, and getting farther out to the skin.

The images on the Table Alpha are scaled 1-to-1 to give a true representation of the hundreds of case studies that can be called up from Anatomages digital library.

If were doing something with the brain and talking about blood vessels, and I tell them the aorta is the size of a 50-cent piece when it comes out of the heart, I can show them that it really is, Anthon said.

The library also includes CT and MRI scans of bodies with disorders.

Anthons students like the identification and labeling features in the Table Alpha.

If we want to go through each muscle and try to figure out which one it is, we click on it, Ricker said. It gives a more realistic model of what it is, so we can (identify those parts) in the 3-D models we have in the classroom.

The table also has freehand dissection tools. Users can make virtual incisions on a male or female cadaver. The body also can be rotated on the screen to help identify bones, organs and nerves.

Theres a lot of crazy, cool features, Anthon said.

As proof, she pulled up on the screen a moving 3-Dimage of a human heart from a CT scan.

Ricker and junior classmate Caroline Kandravi were enthralled by another image the skulls of conjoined twins.

Theres tons of applications (on the Table Alpha) that you can do, Anthon said. To spend more time in the lab and less time in lectures is a great way to go. This will help us do that.

Ricker, who plans to study biological sciences in college, also finds the inclusion of animal scans helpful. The physical structure of dogs, cows, horses, owls and many other animals can be examined.

We dont get to study actual cadavers every day, but we still talk about pathology and things like that, Anthon said.

tmcmaho2@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @ToddMcMahon23

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Virtual cadavers: Biology class goes 3-D - Green Bay Press Gazette