Anatomical and Probabilistic Functional Atlases in Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery

Abstract

Early stereotactic human brain atlases were constructed to support human stereotactic instruments [1]. The advent of computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) enabled imaging of patients’ brains. At present, direct visualization of stereotactic target structures is feasible [2–7] and their depiction, particularly on 3 Tesla systems, is of high quality [8,9]. MRI acquisitions, though superior to CT scans, result in unpredictable and non-reproducible deformations [10]. There are also certain controversies regarding a mismatch between imaging and electrophysiology as well as a target structure incompleteness in the scans [11–13]. Therefore, despite tremendous progress in diagnostic imaging, the stereotactic atlas, particularly in electronic (computerized) format, is still considered an important aid [8,14–17].