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Gustavo K Rohde

Publications and source records attributed to Gustavo K Rohde.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Regional distribution of measurement error in diffusion tensor imaging.

The characterization of measurement error is critical in assessing the significance of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) findings in longitudinal and cohort studies of psychiatric disorders. We studied 20 healthy volunteers, each one scanned twice (average interval between scans of 51 +/- 46.8 days) with a single shot echo planar DTI technique. Intersession variability for fractional anisotropy (FA) and Trace (D) was represented as absolute variation (standard deviation within subjects: SDw), percent coefficient of variation (CV) and intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC). The values from the two sessions were compared for statistical significance with repeated measures analysis of variance or a non-parametric equivalent of a paired t-test. The results showed good reproducibility for both FA and Trace (CVs below 10% and ICCs at or above 0.70 in most regions of interest) and evidence of systematic global changes in Trace between scans. The regional distribution of reproducibility described here has implications for the interpretation of regional findings and for rigorous pre-processing. The regional distribution of reproducibility measures was different for SDw, CV and ICC. Each one of these measures reveals complementary information that needs to be taken into consideration when performing statistical operations on groups of DT images.

Adult↗

Estimating intensity variance due to noise in registered images: applications to diffusion tensor MRI.

Image registration techniques which require image interpolation are widely used in neuroimaging research. We show that signal variance in interpolated images differs significantly from the signal variance of the original images in native space. We describe a simple approach to compute the signal variance in registered images based on the signal variance and covariance of the original images, the spatial transformations computed by the registration procedure, and the interpolation or approximation kernel chosen. The method is general and could handle various sources of signal variability, such as thermal noise and physiological noise, provided that their effects can be assessed in the original images. Our approach is applied to diffusion tensor (DT) MRI data, assuming only thermal noise as the source of variability in the data. We show that incorrect noise variance estimates in registered diffusion-weighted images can affect DT parameters, as well as indices of goodness of fit such as chi-square maps. In addition to DT-MRI, we believe that this methodology would be useful any time parameter extraction methods are applied to registered or interpolated data, such as in relaxometry and functional MRI studies.

Algorithms↗

Correction of motion artifact in cardiac optical mapping using image registration.

Cardiac motion is one of the main sources of artifacts in epifluorescence imaging experiments. It can cause significant error in electrophysiological measurements such as action potential duration. We present a novel approach that uses image registration based on maximization of mutual information to correct for in-plane cardiac motion in such experiments. The approach is relatively fast (a few seconds per frame) and is performed entirely post acquisition. The image registration approach is an alternative to traditional approaches such as mechanical restraint of the heart or addition of chemical uncouplers. Our results show that the image registration method significantly reduces motion-related artifacts in experimental data.

Algorithms↗

New modeling and experimental framework to characterize hindered and restricted water diffusion in brain white matter.

To characterize anisotropic water diffusion in brain white matter, a theoretical framework is proposed that combines hindered and restricted models of water diffusion (CHARMED) and an experimental methodology that embodies features of diffusion tensor and q-space MRI. This model contains a hindered extra-axonal compartment, whose diffusion properties are characterized by an effective diffusion tensor, and an intra-axonal compartment, whose diffusion properties are characterized by a restricted model of diffusion within cylinders. The hindered model primarily explains the Gaussian signal attenuation observed at low b values; the restricted non-Gaussian model does so at high b. Both high and low b data obtained along different directions are required to estimate various microstructural parameters of the composite model, such as the nerve fiber orientation(s), the T2-weighted extra- and intra-axonal volume fractions, and principal diffusivities. The proposed model provides a description of restricted diffusion in 3D given by a 3D probability distribution (average propagator), which is obtained by 3D Fourier transformation of the estimated signal attenuation profile. The new model is tested using synthetic phantoms and validated on excised spinal cord tissue. This framework shows promise in determining the orientations of two or more fiber compartments more precisely and accurately than with diffusion tensor imaging.

Animals↗

The adaptive bases algorithm for intensity-based nonrigid image registration.

Nonrigid registration of medical images is important for a number of applications such as the creation of population averages, atlas-based segmentation, or geometric correction of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) images to name a few. In recent years, a number of methods have been proposed to solve this problem, one class of which involves maximizing a mutual information (MI)-based objective function over a regular grid of splines. This approach has produced good results but its computational complexity is proportional to the compliance of the transformation required to register the smallest structures in the image. Here, we propose a method that permits the spatial adaptation of the transformation's compliance. This spatial adaptation allows us to reduce the number of degrees of freedom in the overall transformation, thus speeding up the process and improving its convergence properties. To develop this method, we introduce several novelties: 1) we rely on radially symmetric basis functions rather than B-splines traditionally used to model the deformation field; 2) we propose a metric to identify regions that are poorly registered and over which the transformation needs to be improved; 3) we partition the global registration problem into several smaller ones; and 4) we introduce a new constraint scheme that allows us to produce transformations that are topologically correct. We compare the approach we propose to more traditional ones and show that our new algorithm compares favorably to those in current use.

Algorithms↗