Analysis of serial magnetic resonance images of mouse brains using image registration.
The aim of this paper is to investigate techniques that can identify and quantify cross-sectional differences and longitudinal changes in vivo from magnetic resonance images of murine models of brain disease. Two different approaches have been compared. The first approach is a segmentation-based approach: Each subject at each time point is automatically segmented into a number of anatomical structures using atlas-based segmentation. This allows cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of group differences on a structure-by-structure basis. The second approach is a deformation-based approach: Longitudinal changes are quantified by the registration of each subject's follow-up images to that subject's baseline image. In addition the baseline images can be registered to an atlas allowing voxel-wise analysis of cross-sectional differences between groups. Both approaches have been tested on two groups of mice: A transgenic model of Alzheimer's disease and a wild-type background strain, using serial imaging performed over the age range from 6-14 months. We show that both approaches are able to identify longitudinal and cross-sectional differences. However, atlas-based segmentation suffers from the inability to detect differences across populations and across time in regions which are much smaller than the anatomical regions. In contrast to this, the deformation-based approach can detect statistically significant differences in highly localized areas.
Maheswaran
Satheesh
S
Department of Computing, South Kensington Campus, Imperial College, London, UK. address: satheesh@doc.ic.ac.uk
Barjat
Hervé
H
Bate
Simon T
ST
Aljabar
Paul
P
Hill
Derek L G
DL
Tilling
Lorna
L
Upton
Neil
N
James
Michael F
MF
Hajnal
Joseph V
JV
Rueckert
Daniel
D
D000465:Algorithms; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000473:pathology*; D000818:Animals; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D051379:Mice; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013382:Subtraction Technique