Constructing a statistical atlas of the radii of the optic nerve and cerebrospinal fluid sheath in young healthy adults.
Optic neuritis is a sudden inflammation of the optic nerve (ON) and is marked by pain on eye movement, and visual symptoms such as a decrease in visual acuity, color vision, contrast and visual field defects. The ON is closely linked with multiple sclerosis (MS) and patients have a 50% chance of developing MS within 15 years. Recent advances in multi-atlas segmentation methods have omitted volumetric assessment. In the past, measuring the size of the ON has been done by hand. We utilize a new method of automatically segmenting the ON to measure the radii of both the ON and surrounding cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) sheath to develop a normative distribution of healthy young adults. We examine this distribution for any trends and find that ON and CSF sheath radii do not vary between 20-35 years of age and between sexes. We evaluate how six patients suffering from optic neuropathy compare to this distribution of controls. We find that of these six patients, five of them qualitatively differ from the normative distribution which suggests this technique could be used in the future to distinguish between optic neuritis patients and healthy controls.
Electrical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA 37235.
Robert L
RL
Harrigan
Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA 37235.
Andrew J
AJ
Plassard
Ophthalmology and Neurological Surgery, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA 37233.
Louise A
LA
Mawn
Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA 37235.
Robert L
RL
Galloway
Institute for Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA 37235 ; Radiology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA 37235.
Seth A
SA
Smith
Electrical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA 37235 ; Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA 37235 ; Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA 37235 ; Institute for Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA 37235 ; Radiology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA 37235.
Bennett A
BA
Landman
Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Multi-Atlas Segmentation; Non-linear Optimization; Optic Nerve