Jianning Li

Dr. Jianning Li

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Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

2Years (2025-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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3 December 2025 in Dentistry Journal
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
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JLJianning Li
Jianning Li
KBKerstin Bitter
Kerstin Bitter
Anh Duc NguyenAnh Duc Nguyen
Anh Duc Nguyen
HSHagay Shemesh
Hagay Shemesh
PZPaul Zaslansky
Paul Zaslansky
SZStefan Zachow
Stefan Zachow
Background/Objectives: Root canal treatment (RCT) is a common dental procedure performed to preserve teeth by removing infected or at-risk pulp tissue caused by caries, trauma, or other pulpal conditions. A successful outcome, among others, depends on accurate identification of the root canal anatomy, planning a suitable therapeutic strategy, and ensuring a bacteria-tight root canal filling. Despite advances in dental techniques, there remains limited integration of computational methods to support key stages of treatment. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of computational methods applied throughout the full workflow of RCT, examining their potential to support clinical decision-making, improve treatment planning and outcome assessment, and help bridge the interdisciplinary gap between dentistry and computational research. Methods: A comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify and analyze computational methods applied to different stages of RCT, including root canal segmentation, morphological analysis, treatment planning, quality evaluation, follow-up, and prognosis prediction. In addition, a taxonomy based on application was developed to categorize these methods based on their function within the treatment process. Insights from the authors’ own research experience were also incorporated to highlight implementation challenges and practical considerations. Results: The review identified a wide range of computational methods aimed at enhancing the consistency and efficiency of RCT. Key findings include the use of advanced image processing for segmentation, image analysis for diagnosis and treatment planning, machine learning for morphological classification, and predictive modeling for outcome estimation. While some methods demonstrate high sensitivity and specificity in diagnostic and planning tasks, many remain in experimental stages and lack clinical integration. There is also a noticeable absence of advanced computational techniques for micro-computed tomography and morphological analysis. Conclusions: Computational methods offer significant potential to improve decision-making and outcomes in RCT. However, greater focus on clinical translation and development of cross-modality methodology is needed. The proposed taxonomy provides a structured framework for organizing existing methods and identifying future research directions tailored to specific phases of treatment. This review serves as a resource for both dental professionals, computer scientists and researchers seeking to bridge the gap between clinical practice and computational innovation.

27 May 2026 in Scientific Reports
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
JLJianning Li
Jianning Li
ASAgniva Sengupta
Agniva Sengupta
SZStefan Zachow
Stefan Zachow
3D shape reconstruction is an active area of research and a fundamental problem in computer vision, with growing applications in the medical domain, where it enables the recovery of missing or fine anatomical structures. Numerous approaches have been proposed for medical shape reconstruction, emphasizing accurate and anatomically plausible reconstructions. However, 3D shape reconstruction remains an inherently ill-posed problem, meaning (1) both neural network-based methods and conventional shape modeling approaches naturally introduce uncertainty in their predictions, and (2) multiple anatomically plausible reconstructions exist for a given partial or low-resolution input. While the uncertainty aspects have been widely explored in general computer vision, they remain relatively under-explored in the context of medical shape reconstruction. In this paper, we developed a 3D Bayesian U-Net and investigated its use for uncertainty estimation and probabilistic reconstructions across three key tasks: cranial reconstruction, facial reconstruction, and skull shape super-resolution. Our findings show that the Bayesian model is able to produce a range of anatomically plausible skull reconstructions while capturing natural skull variations arising from the learned weight uncertainty. Notably, these variations are primarily expressed through differences in bone thickness, which aligns with anatomical expectations, particularly relevant in real-world applications like cranial implant design. Additionally, we propose a principled framework to study the relationship between weight uncertainty and reconstruction uncertainty by analyzing the learned posterior distribution of the weights, demonstrating that our Bayesian U-Net achieves comparable reconstruction performance to a deterministic U-Net baseline while providing reliable uncertainty estimates. Our study also reveals a clear cross-task uncertainty pattern, where tasks with stronger structural constraints, like super-resolution, yield lower predictive uncertainty, while less constrained tasks, like facial reconstruction, result in higher uncertainty. Refer to the project page for more visual results https://git.zib.de/jli/uncertainty-aware-skull-reconstruction/ .