Quantitative comparison of high-resolution MRI and myelin-stained histology of the human cerebral cortex.
The architectonic analysis of the human cerebral cortex is presently based on the examination of stained tissue sections. Recent progress in high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) promotes the feasibility of an in vivo architectonic analysis. Since the exact relationship between the laminar fine-structure of a cortical MRI signal and histological cyto-and myeloarchitectonic staining patterns is not known, a quantitative study comparing high-resolution MRI to histological ground truth images is necessary for validating a future MRI based architectonic analysis. This communication describes an ongoing study comparing post mortem MR images to a myelin-stained histology of the brain cortex. After establishing a close spatial correspondence between histological sections and MRI using a slice-to-volume nonrigid registration algorithm, transcortical intensity profiles, extracted from both imaging modalities along curved trajectories of a Laplacian vector field, are compared via a cross-correlational analysis.
Osechinskiy
Sergey
S
Department of Biomed-ical Engineering, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA. sosechin@uci.edu
Kruggel
Frithjof
F
D000465:Algorithms; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000166:cytology*; 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*; D009413:Nerve Fibers, Myelinated / Q000648:ultrastructure*