Reliable manual segmentation of the frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes on magnetic resonance images of healthy subjects.
BACKGROUND
It is a challenge to reliably measure the lobar volumes from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data.


OBJECTIVE
Description of a landmark-based method for volumetric segmentation of the brain into the four cerebral lobes from MR images.


METHODS
The segmentation method relies on a combination of anatomical landmarks and geometrical definitions. The first step, described previously, is a segmentation of the four lobes on the surface of the brain. The internal borders between the lobes are defined on the axial slices of the brain. The intra- and inter- rater reliability was determined from the MRI scans of a group of 10 healthy control subjects measured by 2 independent raters.


RESULTS
The intra-rater relative error (and intra-class correlation coefficient) of the lobar volume measures ranged from 0.81% to 3.85% (from 0.97 to 0.99). The inter-rater relative error (and intra-class correlation coefficient) ranged from 0.55% to 3.09% (from 0.94 to 0.99).


CONCLUSIONS
This technique has been shown to have high intra- and inter-rater reliability. The current method provides a method to obtain volumetric estimates of the 4 cerebral lobes.
Bokde
Arun L W
AL
Dementia and Neuro-imaging Research Section, Alzheimer's Memorial Center and Geriatric Psychiatry Branch, Department of Psychiatry, Ludwig-Maximilian University, Nussbaumstr. 7, Station D2, 80336 Munich, Germany.
Teipel
Stefan J
SJ
Schwarz
Robert
R
Leinsinger
Gerda
G
Buerger
Katharina
K
Moeller
Tobias
T
Möller
Hans-Juergen
HJ
Hampel
Harald
H
D000368:Aged; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000033:anatomy & histology