Denis Le Bihan (born 30 July 1957) is a medical doctor, physicist, member of the Institut de France (French Academy of sciences),[1] member of the French Academy of Technologies and director since 2007 of NeuroSpin, an institution of the Atomic Energy and Alternative Energy Commission (CEA) in Saclay, dedicated to the study of the brain by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with a very high magnetic field.
Denis Le Bihan joined the Frédéric Joliot Hospital Service of the CEA in 1994 to head the anatomical and functional neuroimaging laboratory.
[6] Denis Le Bihan is particularly recognized for his pioneering work on diffusion MRI, a concept whose principles he established[7] and demonstrated its potential,[8] particularly in the medical field during the 1980s.
The consequences of stroke are formidable: it is the third leading cause of death, and in 30% of cases it leaves severe functional sequelae (hemiplegia, speech disorders) in patients who become unable to support themselves.
It is therefore sufficient to obtain images of the diffusion of water in different directions to account for the orientation of the fibres, which Denis Le Bihan's team first showed in 1991.
[15] Diffusion MRI can therefore not only diagnose and study white matter fibre disorders (such as multiple sclerosis), but also subtle connection abnormalities in neural circuits.
While diffusion MRI is mainly used for the brain, Denis Le Bihan's first trials actually focused on the liver to identify tumours and distinguish them from vascular malformations.
He is also an experienced photographer: he exhibited an extract of his works (photos of Kyoto) in November 2011 at the French Institute of Japan – Kansai in honour of the victims of the Pacific Coast earthquake at Tōhoku He is also at the origin of a weather forecast website (updated daily with a 6-day window, for the moment for the West Paris region) with original forecasting tools that he himself has developed since the age of 12.