Warping a neuro-anatomy atlas on 3D MRI data with radial basis functions

Abstract

Navigation for neurosurgical procedures must be highly accurate. Often small structures are hardly seen on pre-operative scans. Fitting a 3D electronic neuro-anatomical atlas on the data assists with the localization of small structures and dim outlines. During surgery also brainshifts occurs. With intra-operative MRI the pre-operative MRI can be warped to the real 3D situation. The paper describes a general 3D landmark-based warping method, based on radial basis functions (thin plate splines) for data of any number of dimensions, including all code in Mathematica.