Structural MRI: Morphometry

Abstract

Human brains are characterised by considerable intersubject anatomicalvariability, which is of interest in both clinical practice and research. Computationalmorphometry of magnetic resonance images has emerged as the method of choicefor studying macroscopic changes in brain structure. Magnetic resonance imagingnot only allows the acquisition of images of the entire brain in vivo but also thetracking of changes over time using repeated measurements, while computationalmorphometry enables the automated analysis of subtle changes in brain structure. Inthis section, several voxel-based morphometric methods for the automated analysisof brain images are presented. In thefirst part, some basic principles and techniquesare introduced, while deformation- and voxel-based morphometry are discussed inthe second part.