Voxel-based morphometry | EPFL Graph Search

Voxel-based morphometry is a computational approach to neuroanatomy that measures differences in local concentrations of brain tissue, through a voxel-wise comparison of multiple brain images. In traditional morphometry, volume of the whole brain or its subparts is measured by drawing regions of interest (ROIs) on images from brain scanning and calculating the volume enclosed. However, this is time consuming and can only provide measures of rather large areas. Smaller differences in volume may be overlooked. The value of VBM is that it allows for comprehensive measurement of differences, not just in specific structures, but throughout the entire brain. VBM every brain to a template, which gets rid of most of the large differences in brain anatomy among people. Then the brain images are smoothed so that each voxel represents the average of itself and its neighbors. Finally, the image volume is compared across brains at every voxel. However, VBM can be sensitive to various artifacts, which include misalignment of brain structures, misclassification of tissue types, differences in folding patterns and in cortical thickness. All these may confound the statistical analysis and either decrease the sensitivity to true volumetric effects, or increase the chance of false positives. For the cerebral cortex, it has been shown that volume differences identified with VBM may reflect mostly differences in surface area of the cortex, than in cortical thickness. Over the past two decades, hundreds of studies have shed light on the neuroanatomical structural correlates of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Many of these studies were performed using voxel-based morphometry (VBM), a whole-brain technique for characterizing between groups' regional volume and tissue concentration differences from structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. One of the first VBM studies and one that came to attention in mainstream media was a study on the hippocampus brain structure of London taxicab drivers.

The hindbrain and cortico-reticular pathway in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis

Bénédicte Marie Maréchal

AIM: To characterise the corticoreticular pathway (CRP) in a case -control cohort of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) patients using high -resolution slice -accelerated readoutsegmented echo -planar diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to enhance the discri ...

W B Saunders Co Ltd2024

Brain morphometry in older adults with and without dementia using extremely rapid structural scans

Tobias Kober, Tom Hilbert

T1-weighted structural MRI is widely used to measure brain morphometry (e.g., cortical thickness and subcortical volumes). Accelerated scans as fast as one minute or less are now available but it is unclear if they are adequate for quantitative morphometry ...

ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE2023