Patent ID: 6819952
Filing Date: 2004-11-16
Classification: A61B,G01R

Abstract:
A non-invasive method to determine and localize a change in brain integrity in a compartment of a brain wherein said brain integrity is the concentration of a neuronal marker in one or more structural compartments with a brain tissue type comprising the steps of:(a) providing structural images said brain and metabolite images using MRS of said brain for at least two time instances, wherein said structural images provide information regarding brain tissue type and said one or more structural compartments and said metabolite brain images provide information regarding said concentration of said neuronal marker; (b) aligning said structural brain images and said metabolic brain images and thereby creating aligned images; (c) segmenting said one or more structural compartments with said specific brain tissue type from said aligned images and guided by said structural images, wherein said brain tissue type is selected from the group consisting of gray matter, white matter and cerebrospinal fluid; (d) determining said change in brain integrity over said at least two times instances in said one or more structural compartments of said brain by determining the change in concentration of said neuronal marker per unit volume of said brain tissue type.