Construction of a fetal spatio-temporal cortical surface atlas from in utero MRI: Application of spectral surface matching

TY - JOUR

T1 - Construction of a fetal spatio-temporal cortical surface atlas from in utero MRI

T2 - Application of spectral surface matching

AU - Wright, R

AU - Makropoulos, A

AU - Kyriakopoulou, V

AU - Patkee, P A

AU - Koch, L M

AU - Rutherford, M A

AU - Hajnal, J V

AU - Rueckert, D

AU - Aljabar, P

PY - 2015/10/15

Y1 - 2015/10/15

N2 - In this study, we construct a spatio-temporal surface atlas of the developing cerebral cortex, which is an important tool for analysing and understanding normal and abnormal cortical development. In utero Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of 80 healthy fetuses was performed, with a gestational age range of 21.7 to 38.9 weeks. Topologically correct cortical surface models were extracted from reconstructed 3D MRI volumes. Accurate correspondences were obtained by applying a joint spectral analysis to cortices for sets of subjects close to a specific age. Sulcal alignment was found to be accurate in comparison to spherical demons, a state of the art registration technique for aligning 2D cortical representations (average Fréchet distance ≈ 0.4 mm at 30 weeks). We construct consistent, unbiased average cortical surface templates, for each week of gestation, from age-matched groups of surfaces by applying kernel regression in the spectral domain. These were found to accurately capture the average cortical shape of individuals within the cohort, suggesting a good alignment of cortical geometry. Each spectral embedding and its corresponding cortical surface template provide a dual reference space where cortical geometry is aligned and a vertex-wise morphometric analysis can be undertaken.

AB - In this study, we construct a spatio-temporal surface atlas of the developing cerebral cortex, which is an important tool for analysing and understanding normal and abnormal cortical development. In utero Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of 80 healthy fetuses was performed, with a gestational age range of 21.7 to 38.9 weeks. Topologically correct cortical surface models were extracted from reconstructed 3D MRI volumes. Accurate correspondences were obtained by applying a joint spectral analysis to cortices for sets of subjects close to a specific age. Sulcal alignment was found to be accurate in comparison to spherical demons, a state of the art registration technique for aligning 2D cortical representations (average Fréchet distance ≈ 0.4 mm at 30 weeks). We construct consistent, unbiased average cortical surface templates, for each week of gestation, from age-matched groups of surfaces by applying kernel regression in the spectral domain. These were found to accurately capture the average cortical shape of individuals within the cohort, suggesting a good alignment of cortical geometry. Each spectral embedding and its corresponding cortical surface template provide a dual reference space where cortical geometry is aligned and a vertex-wise morphometric analysis can be undertaken.

U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.05.087

DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.05.087

M3 - Article

C2 - 26070259

SN - 1053-8119

VL - 120

SP - 467

EP - 480

JO - NeuroImage

JF - NeuroImage

ER -