TY - JOUR
T1 - Evaluation of group-specific, whole-brain atlas generation using Volume-based Template Estimation (VTE)
T2 - Application to normal and Alzheimer's populations
AU - Zhang, Yajing
AU - Zhang, Jiangyang
AU - Hsu, Johnny
AU - Oishi, Kenichi
AU - Faria, Andreia V.
AU - Albert, Marilyn
AU - Miller, Michael I.
AU - Mori, Susumu
N1 - Funding Information:
This publication was made possible by grants R01AG020012 (SM), R01EB000975 (MIM), R01HD065955 (KO), R21AG033774 (KO) from the National Institutes of Health , and P41EB015909 from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering . Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of NIH. The terms of this arrangement are being managed by Johns Hopkins University in accordance with its conflict of interest policies. The authors thank Dr. Laurent Younes and Dr. Tilak Ratnanather for their helpful suggestions.
PY - 2014/1/1
Y1 - 2014/1/1
N2 - MRI-based human brain atlases, which serve as a common coordinate system for image analysis, play an increasingly important role in our understanding of brain anatomy, image registration, and segmentation. Study-specific brain atlases are often obtained from one of the subjects in a study or by averaging the images of all participants after linear or non-linear registration. The latter approach has the advantage of providing an unbiased anatomical representation of the study population. But, the image contrast is influenced by both inherent MR contrasts and residual anatomical variability after the registration; in addition, the topology of the brain structures cannot reliably be preserved. In this study, we demonstrated a population-based template-creation approach, which is based on Bayesian template estimation on a diffeomorphic random orbit model. This approach attempts to define a population-representative template without the cross-subject intensity averaging; thus, the topology of the brain structures is preserved. It has been tested for segmented brain structures, such as the hippocampus, but its validity on whole-brain MR images has not been examined. This paper validates and evaluates this atlas generation approach, i.e., Volume-based Template Estimation (VTE). Using datasets from normal subjects and Alzheimer's patients, quantitative measurements of sub-cortical structural volumes, metric distance, displacement vector, and Jacobian were examined to validate the group-averaged shape features of the VTE. In addition to the volume-based quantitative analysis, the preserved brain topology of the VTE allows surface-based analysis within the same atlas framework. This property was demonstrated by analyzing the registration accuracy of the pre- and post-central gyri. The proposed method achieved registration accuracy within 1. mm for these population-preserved cortical structures in an elderly population.
AB - MRI-based human brain atlases, which serve as a common coordinate system for image analysis, play an increasingly important role in our understanding of brain anatomy, image registration, and segmentation. Study-specific brain atlases are often obtained from one of the subjects in a study or by averaging the images of all participants after linear or non-linear registration. The latter approach has the advantage of providing an unbiased anatomical representation of the study population. But, the image contrast is influenced by both inherent MR contrasts and residual anatomical variability after the registration; in addition, the topology of the brain structures cannot reliably be preserved. In this study, we demonstrated a population-based template-creation approach, which is based on Bayesian template estimation on a diffeomorphic random orbit model. This approach attempts to define a population-representative template without the cross-subject intensity averaging; thus, the topology of the brain structures is preserved. It has been tested for segmented brain structures, such as the hippocampus, but its validity on whole-brain MR images has not been examined. This paper validates and evaluates this atlas generation approach, i.e., Volume-based Template Estimation (VTE). Using datasets from normal subjects and Alzheimer's patients, quantitative measurements of sub-cortical structural volumes, metric distance, displacement vector, and Jacobian were examined to validate the group-averaged shape features of the VTE. In addition to the volume-based quantitative analysis, the preserved brain topology of the VTE allows surface-based analysis within the same atlas framework. This property was demonstrated by analyzing the registration accuracy of the pre- and post-central gyri. The proposed method achieved registration accuracy within 1. mm for these population-preserved cortical structures in an elderly population.
KW - MRI
KW - Study-specific atlas
KW - Volume-based Template Estimation (VTE)
KW - Volume-surface analysis
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U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.09.011
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.09.011
M3 - Article
C2 - 24051356
AN - SCOPUS:84884944608
VL - 84
SP - 406
EP - 419
JO - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
SN - 1053-8119
ER -