Automatic registration of brain magnetic resonance images based on Talairach reference system

To demonstrate a robust registration method of brain magnetic resonance (MR) images based on the Talairach reference system with automatic determinations of the fiducial points.

Eight specified landmark points of the Talairach reference system are determined after successfully extracting the midsagittal plane from three-dimensional MR imaging (MRI) data. Projection information of the image intensity is used to determine the midline of the cerebrum in axial and coronal view images, which is a necessary step for extraction of the midsagittal plane. To find the landmarks of anterior commissure (AC) and posterior commissure (PC) in the midsagittal plane, we adopt two-step shape matching that properly finds locations of the corpus callosum (CC), and then AC and PC, respectively. The shape matching is performed on the edge-enhanced midsagittal plane image to minimize dependency on image intensity variation. Other landmark points of the Talairach reference system are determined by fitting the intensity curve of the cutview with the Gaussian model.

The proposed method automatically determines seven landmark points, except the inferior point (IP), and the brain MR images can be successfully registered with the Talairach reference system.

The suggested registration method can be applied to any MR images for functional studies. It can also be applied to patients unless their brains are highly deformed or have a highly deformed CC.