Jon Orlando Cleary*1,2, Marc Modat*3, Anthony Nathan Price1, Nicholas D. Greene4, David L. Thomas2,5, Peter J. Scambler6, Roger J. Ordidge2,5, S Ourselin3, Mark Francis Lythgoe1
1Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging, Department of Medicine and Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, UK; 2Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering, University College London, London, UK; 3Centre for Medical Image Computing, University College London, London, UK; 4Neural Development Unit, UCL Institute of Child Health, London, UK; 5Wellcome Trust Advanced MRI Laboratory, University College London, London, UK; 6Molecular Medicine Unit, UCL Institute of Child Health, London, *equal contribution
Voxel and deformation-based morphometry can detect subtle anatomical differences by combining a number of subjects to create an average atlas and comparing two atlases statistically. Studies of adult mouse brain have used these methods but they may be useful for phenotyping the mouse embryo. MRI is an emerging technique for imaging mouse embryos. However current analysis involves inspection of each embryo. Morphometric methods, where large numbers of embryos may be compared, show promise for high-throughput analysis. We present an initial study to examine the viability of an embryo atlas, focusing on the degree of anatomy preserved after averaging individual embryos.