Xiujuan Geng1, Thomas J. Ross1, Svetlana Chefer1, Hong Gu1, Elliot Stein1, Yihong Yang1
1Neuroimaging Research Branch, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, MD, USA
A framework of deformation-based morphometry (DBM) with implicit reference-based group (IRG) registration is proposed. Comparisons between the proposed DBM method and the commonly used approach were made and results demonstrated more accurate volume change detection. Validation of cross group volumetric comparison using DBM was performed by simulating known volume change and deformation fields. The DBM technique was applied to a study of monkey brain morphological change due to early life stress, and compared to manual segmentation results. DBM provided consistent but more localized structural changes.