Neuroscience 2002 Abstract
| Presentation Number: | 506.13 |
|---|---|
| Abstract Title: | FRACTAL STRUCTURE IN HUMAN CEREBELLUM MEASURED BY MRI. |
| Authors: |
Zhang, L. D.*1
; Yue, G. H.1
; Liu, J. Z.1
1Dept. of Biomedical Engineering, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH |
| Primary Theme and Topics |
Techniques in Neuroscience - Data analysis, physiological methods, statistics |
| Secondary Theme and Topics | Motor Systems<br />- Cerebellum<br />-- Cortex |
| Session: |
506. Data analysis, physiological methods, statistics: MEG, fMRI, EEG, etc. Poster |
| Presentation Time: | Tuesday, November 5, 2002 8:00 AM-9:00 AM |
| Location: | Hall A2-B3 AA-41 |
| Keywords: | FRACTAL DIMENSION, SKELETON, BRAIN, FRACTAL |
Fractal geometry has been used to quantify the structure of a wide range of objects in biology and medicine. In this study we measured the fractal dimension of human cerebellum (CB) using MR CB images. Coronal MRI brain images covering the whole CB were collected from healthy adult subjects using a 1.5 T Siemens Vision scanner and 3-D Turboflash imaging sequence (TR/TE = 11.4/4.4ms, flip angle = 10°). Slice thickness was 2 mm, in-plane resolution was 1 x 1 mm2. The CB images were segmented out manually from the collected images, and then were resampled to be 1 mm in thickness. The resulted images were further resampled to a series of image sets with 3-D resolutions (Δ) of 1/4, 1/2, 2, 4 mm. The interfaces between white matter and gray matter in each image set were extracted using a user-modified contour algorithm in Matlab and a histogram-based thresholding. The rendered contour images were then binarized (i.e., voxels within the contours were assigned as 1, otherwise 0). A thinning method was applied to the binary images and skeletons of the CB were obtained. The number of voxels (N) that belong to the skeleton was calculated in each image set. The box-counting dimension was adopted to define the fractal dimension (D) of CB skeleton, which was determined from the relationship between N and Δ (i.e., N ∝ Δ-D) by fitting the data. The preliminary results from 3 subjects indicated the CB fractal dimension is about 2.6 (± 0.1), suggesting that the CB skeleton is highly fractal. The fractal dimension may serve as a quantitative index for structural complexity of the CB at its developmental, degenerative, diseased or evolutional stages.
Supported by NIH grants NS37400 and HD36725
Sample Citation:
[Authors]. [Abstract Title]. Program No. XXX.XX. 2002 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. Orlando, FL: Society for Neuroscience, 2002. Online.
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