Patent ID: 8160317
Filing Date: 2012-04-17
Classification: G06T

Abstract:
1. In a method for the topographical presentation of changes in an examined brain, through the use of volume data sets, the method comprising the steps of: generating three-dimensional image data sets of the examined brain using positron emission tomography, magnetic-resonance imaging, or high-resolution MR, employing the generated data sets as a nondeformed reference structure for the corresponding data set of digitized histological sections of the two dimensional histological section series, mapping areas by extracting profiles showing boundaries of two areas of the examined brain, detecting the boundaries of the two areas by computing a multivariate distance measure, acquiring a change in a microstructure in the region of the boundary of the two areas and comparing the acquired change to at least one microstructure of a boundary region of a reference brain, and aligning the acquired data sets of the brain to correspond with the histological section by use of a predetermined transformation, the improvement comprising the step of: using an elastic registration method to perform the transformation, transforming the volume data sets into a target volume data set, basing the computed transformation on an initial image and a reference image of the examined brain, a difference between the two images being characterized by a suitable distance D, and in order to ensure the regularity of a computed solution u where small changes in the data only lead to small changes in the solution that minimizes D, a regularization term R [α,u,Ω] is considered in addition to D that favors certain classes of transformations where R remains small for these transformations.