Registration of brain MR images using feature information of structural elements

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new registration algorithm, which can provide more exact criteria for deciphering brain diseases. At the first stage, our algorithm divides the areas of the brain structures to extract their features. After calculating contour and area information, the grouping step is performed. At the next stage, the brain structures are precisely classified with respect to the shape of cerebrospinal fluid and the volume of brain structures. These features are finally integrated into a knowledge base to build up a new standard atlas for normal brain MR images. Using this standard atlas, we perform the registration process after extracting the brain structures from the MR image to be compared. Finally, we analyze the registration results of the normal and abnormal MR images, and showed that the exactness of our algorithm is relatively superior to the previous methods. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.