Multimodality image quantification using the Talairach grid

Manuel Desco, Javier Pascau, Santiago Reig, Juan D. Gispert, Andres Santos, Carlos Benito, Vicente Molina, Pedro Garcia-Barreno, Milan Sonka, Kenneth M. Hanson
2001 Medical Imaging 2001: Image Processing  
We present an application of the widely accepted anatomical reference of the Talairach atlas as a system for semiautomatic segmentation and analysis of MRI and PET images. The proposed methodology can be seen as a multimodal application where the anatomical information of the MRI is used to build the Talairach grid and a co-registered PET image is superimposed on the same grid. By doing so, the Talairach-normalized tessellation of the brain is directly extended to PET images, allowing for a
more » ... enient regional analysis of volume and activity rates of brain structures, defined in the Talairach Atlas as sets of cells. This procedure requires minimal manipulation of brain geometry, thus fully preserving individual brain morphology. To illustrate the potential of the Talairach method for neurological research, we applied our technique in a comparative study of volume and activity rate patterns in MRI and PET images of a group of 51 schizophrenic patients and 24 healthy volunteers. With regard to previous applications of the Talairach grid as an automatic segmentation system, the procedure presented here features two main improvements: the enhanced possibility of measuring metabolic activity in a variety of brain structures including small ones like the caudate nucleus, hippocampus or thalamus; and its conception as an easy-to-use tool developed to work in standard PC Windows environment.
doi:10.1117/12.431018 dblp:conf/miip/DescoPRGSBMG01 fatcat:od5pap6fvjbpfmrhyhq56lymqy