A method to match human sulci in 3D-space

Presents a multiple force-based deformation algorithm (MFBD) which performs a 3-D spatial transformation to match cortical infolding features, i.e. sulci from different human brains. Prior anatomical knowledge of the likely location of major cerebral sulci was put in a rule base, allowing the initial main sulcal correspondences between model and data to be tentatively established. An iterative force-based deformation was implemented on the model to increase the spatial correspondence between the model and the data. Both simulation and real MRI data experiments show that MFBD produces accurate results, and is insensitive to noise. MFBD is therefore a method for the registration of sulci, blood vessels, and other extracted complicated physiological curves derived from 3-D medical images