Andreia Vasconcellos Faria1,2, Jiangyang Zhang1, Kenishi Oishi1, Xin Li3, Hangyi Jiang1, Kazi Akhter1, Koji Sakai1, Laurent Hermoye4, Seung-Koo Lee5, Michael I. Miller6, Peter van Zijl1,3, Susumu Mori1
1Radiology, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutes, Baltimore, MD, USA; 2Radiology, State University of Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil; 3Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA; 4Universit Catholique de Louvain, Belgium; 5Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea; 6Center for Imaging Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
Quantification of normal brain maturation is a crucial step to understand developmental abnormalities. Using a nonlinear warping algorithm based on large deformation, diffeomorphic metric mapping (LDDMM) we registered Diffusion Tensor Images (DTI) of normal pediatric participants into common coordinates. The recently established brain atlas was used to automatically segment the brains which enabled us to investigate differences in maturation in different regions. Each segmented area showed distinctive maturation processes in term of its size, FA, and diffusivity. These tools and data provide information about normal values, essential for experimental designs for future pathological studies.