Tensor-based morphometry (TBM) is an automated technique for detecting the anatomical differences between populations by examining the gradients of the deformation fields used to nonlinearly warp MR images. The purpose of this study was to investigate the whole-brain volume changes between the patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and the controls using TBM with DARTEL, which could achieve more accurate inter-subject registration of brain images. T1-weighted images were acquired from 21 left-TLE patients, 21 right-TLE patients and 21 healthy controls, which were matched in age and gender. The determinants of the gradient of deformation fields at voxel level were obtained to quantify the expansion or contraction for individual images relative to the template, and then logarithmical transformation was applied on it. A whole brain analysis was performed using general lineal model (GLM), and the multiple comparison was corrected by false discovery rate (FDR) with p<0.05. For left-TLE patients, significant volume reductions were found in hippocampus, cingulate gyrus, precentral gyrus, right temporal lobe and cerebellum. These results potentially support the utility of TBM with DARTEL to study the structural changes between groups.

Date Published: 30 October 2009
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 7497, MIPPR 2009: Medical Imaging, Parallel Processing of Images, and Optimization Techniques, 749723 (30 October 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.833128

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7497:
MIPPR 2009: Medical Imaging, Parallel Processing of Images, and Optimization Techniques
Faxiong Zhang; Faxiong Zhang, Editor(s)