Spatio-temporal Modeling and Analysis of Brain Development
Author(s)
Serag, Ahmed
Type
Thesis
Abstract
The incidence of preterm birth is increasing and has emerged as a leading cause of neurodevelopmental
impairment in childhood. In early development, defined here as the
period before and around birth, the brain undergoes significant morphological, functional
and appearance changes. The scope and rate of change is arguably greater than at any
other time in life, but quantitative markers of this period of development are limited. Improved
understanding of cerebral changes during this critical period is important for mapping
normal growth, and for investigating mechanisms of injury associated with risk factors for
maldevelopment such as premature birth. The objective of this thesis is the development
of methods for spatio-temporal modeling and quantitative measures of brain development
that can assist understanding the patterns of normal growth and can guide interventions
designed to reduce the burden of preterm brain injury.
An approach for constructing high-definition spatio-temporal atlases of the developing
brain is introduced. A novelty in the proposed approach is the use of a time-varying kernel
width, to overcome the variations in the distribution of subjects at different ages. This leads
to an atlas that retains a consistent level of detail at every time-point. The resulting 4D
fetal and neonatal average atlases have greater anatomic definition than currently available
4D atlases, an important factor in improving registrations between the atlas and individual
subjects with clear anatomical structures and atlas-based automatic segmentation. The
fetal atlas provides a natural benchmark for assessing preterm born neonates and gives some
insight into differences between the groups.
Also, a novel framework for longitudinal registration which can accommodate large intra-subject
anatomical variations is introduced. The framework exploits previously developed
spatio-temporal atlases, which can aid the longitudinal registration process as it provides
prior information about the missing anatomical evolution between two scans taken over large
time-interval.
Finally, a voxel-wise analysis framework is proposed which complements the analysis of
changes in brain morphology by the study of spatio-temporal signal intensity changes in
multi-modal MRI, which can offer a useful marker of neurodevelopmental changes.
impairment in childhood. In early development, defined here as the
period before and around birth, the brain undergoes significant morphological, functional
and appearance changes. The scope and rate of change is arguably greater than at any
other time in life, but quantitative markers of this period of development are limited. Improved
understanding of cerebral changes during this critical period is important for mapping
normal growth, and for investigating mechanisms of injury associated with risk factors for
maldevelopment such as premature birth. The objective of this thesis is the development
of methods for spatio-temporal modeling and quantitative measures of brain development
that can assist understanding the patterns of normal growth and can guide interventions
designed to reduce the burden of preterm brain injury.
An approach for constructing high-definition spatio-temporal atlases of the developing
brain is introduced. A novelty in the proposed approach is the use of a time-varying kernel
width, to overcome the variations in the distribution of subjects at different ages. This leads
to an atlas that retains a consistent level of detail at every time-point. The resulting 4D
fetal and neonatal average atlases have greater anatomic definition than currently available
4D atlases, an important factor in improving registrations between the atlas and individual
subjects with clear anatomical structures and atlas-based automatic segmentation. The
fetal atlas provides a natural benchmark for assessing preterm born neonates and gives some
insight into differences between the groups.
Also, a novel framework for longitudinal registration which can accommodate large intra-subject
anatomical variations is introduced. The framework exploits previously developed
spatio-temporal atlases, which can aid the longitudinal registration process as it provides
prior information about the missing anatomical evolution between two scans taken over large
time-interval.
Finally, a voxel-wise analysis framework is proposed which complements the analysis of
changes in brain morphology by the study of spatio-temporal signal intensity changes in
multi-modal MRI, which can offer a useful marker of neurodevelopmental changes.
Date Issued
2012-06
Date Awarded
2013-06
Copyright Statement
Attribution NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-ND)
Advisor
Rueckert, Daniel
Counsell, Serena
Sponsor
Chloe-Svider grant
Publisher Department
Computing
Publisher Institution
Imperial College London
Qualification Level
Doctoral
Qualification Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)