title: Analysis of PET neurofunctional mapping studies.
abstract: In this work, we present a method for analyzing positron emission tomography (PET) functional mapping experiments. The method is useful for identifying statistically significant differences between two PET data sets. First, uniform-variance Z-images are created and then the statistical uncertainty in region-of-interest values are calculated using a previously published method. The Z-images are calculated from the emission sinograms only--the calculation does not use scanner normalization and attenuation corrections and hence variance from these sources is eliminated, with no decrease in validity. Next, the Z-images are analyzed for activation sites using two separate techniques: a cluster analysis method and a change distribution analysis method. Both of these techniques are shown to be effective for objectively locating significantly activated regions from the Z-images. Two advantages of these methods are that they are objective and efficient; all of the parameters necessary in the calculations can be precomputed and stored since they depend only upon the geometry of the scanner.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA.
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Votaw
authors.forename: H H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed