Patent ID: 7103399

Claim:
A method of registering an image volume of a brain of a living subject to a cortical surface of at least one targeted region of the brain of the living subject, comprising the steps of: a. pro-operatively acquiring the image volume from the brain of the living subject; b. generating a grayscale encoded brain surface from the acquired image volume; c. intra-operatively obtaining a textured point cloud of the cortical surface of the at least one targeted region of the brain of the living subject; d. aligning the grayscale-encoded brain surface to the textured point cloud of the conical surface so as to register the image volume of the brain with respect to the cortical surface of the at least one targeted region of the brain, wherein the textured point cloud contains intensity patterns representing sulcal-gyrus differences and contrast-enhanced vasculature related to the cortical surface of the at least one targeted region of the brain of the living subject; and e. generating an image of the registered image volume.