INDIVIDUALIZED DIFFEOMORPHIC MAPPING FOR STROKE PATIENTS WITH LARGE CORTICAL INFARCTS

Abstract

Whole brain mapping for stroke patients with large cortical infarcts poses a challenge to conventional automatic whole brain mapping algorithms. These algorithms minimize a quanti fied measure of di fferences between images with a pre-determined atlas, and are commonly formulated based on parameters such as their intensity values. This causes an ensuing mismatch in the areas of signal loss, in particular, the regions containing cortical infarcted brain tissues, as they are not found in the atlas. In this study, we investigated an individualized approach of whole brain mapping for stroke patients with large cortical infarcts. We proposed a framework based on Large Deformation Di ffeomorphic Metric Mapping (LDDMM) with individualized anatomical features extraction and cost function masking, for registering an atlas to a brain with large cortical infarcts. We applied this technique to 2 separate datasets (of either real or simulated cortical infarcts) of diff erent databases and validated the mapping accuracy using selected quantitative measures. Our results revealed that our mapping technique for stroke patients produced comparable accuracy with LDDMM for healthy controls without cortical infarcts. Hence, we consider this as the preferred method of choice in brain image mapping with large cortical infarcts.