Publications by Year: 2007

2007

Michailovich O, Tannenbaum A. Blind deconvolution of medical ultrasound images: a parametric inverse filtering approach. IEEE Trans Image Process. 2007;16(12):3005–19.
The problem of reconstruction of ultrasound images by means of blind deconvolution has long been recognized as one of the central problems in medical ultrasound imaging. In this paper, this problem is addressed via proposing a blind deconvolution method which is innovative in several ways. In particular, the method is based on parametric inverse filtering, whose parameters are optimized using two-stage processing. At the first stage, some partial information on the point spread function is recovered. Subsequently, this information is used to explicitly constrain the spectral shape of the inverse filter. From this perspective, the proposed methodology can be viewed as a "hybridization" of two standard strategies in blind deconvolution, which are based on either concurrent or successive estimation of the point spread function and the image of interest. Moreover, evidence is provided that the "hybrid" approach can outperform the standard ones in a number of important practical cases. Additionally, the present study introduces a different approach to parameterizing the inverse filter. Specifically, we propose to model the inverse transfer function as a member of a principal shift-invariant subspace. It is shown that such a parameterization results in considerably more stable reconstructions as compared to standard parameterization methods. Finally, it is shown how the inverse filters designed in this way can be used to deconvolve the images in a nonblind manner so as to further improve their quality. The usefulness and practicability of all the introduced innovations are proven in a series of both in silico and in vivo experiments. Finally, it is shown that the proposed deconvolutioh algorithms are capable of improving the resolution of ultrasound images by factors of 2.24 or 6.52 (as judged by the autocorrelation criterion) depending on the type of regularization method used.
Georgiou T, Michailovich O, Rathi Y, Malcolm J, Tannenbaum A. Distribution Metrics and Image Segmentation. Linear Algebra Appl. 2007;425(2-3):663–672.
The purpose of this paper is to describe certain alternative metrics for quantifying distances between distributions, and to explain their use and relevance in visual tracking. Besides the theoretical interest, such metrics may be used to design filters for image segmentation, that is for solving the key visual task of separating an object from the background in an image. The segmenting curve is represented as the zero level set of a signed distance function. Most existing methods in the geometric active contour framework perform segmentation by maximizing the separation of intensity moments between the interior and the exterior of an evolving contour. Here one can use the given distributional metric to determine a flow which minimizes changes in the distribution inside and outside the curve.
Estepar RSJ, Stylopoulos N, Ellis R, Samset E, Westin CF, Thompson C, Vosburgh K. Towards scarless surgery: an endoscopic ultrasound navigation system for transgastric access procedures. Comput Aided Surg. 2007;12(6):311–24.
OBJECTIVE: Scarless surgery is an innovative and promising technique that may herald a new era in surgical procedures. We have created a navigation system, named IRGUS, for endoscopic and transgastric access interventions and have validated it in in vivo pilot studies. Our hypothesis is that endoscopic ultrasound procedures will be performed more easily and efficiently if the operator is provided with approximately registered 3D and 2D processed CT images in real time that correspond to the probe position and ultrasound image. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The system provides augmented visual feedback and additional contextual information to assist the operator. It establishes correspondence between the real-time endoscopic ultrasound image and a preoperative CT volume registered using electromagnetic tracking of the endoscopic ultrasound probe position. Based on this positional information, the CT volume is reformatted in approximately the same coordinate frame as the ultrasound image and displayed to the operator. RESULTS: The system reduces the mental burden of probe navigation and enhances the operator’s ability to interpret the ultrasound image. Using an initial rigid body registration, we measured the mis-registration error between the ultrasound image and the reformatted CT plane to be less than 5 mm, which is sufficient to enable the performance of novice users of endoscopic systems to approach that of expert users. CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis shows that real-time display of data using rigid registration is sufficiently accurate to assist surgeons in performing endoscopic abdominal procedures. By using preoperative data to provide context and support for image interpretation and real-time imaging for targeting, it appears probable that both preoperative and intraoperative data may be used to improve operator performance.
Ziyan U, Sabuncu MR, Donnell LJO, Westin CF. Nonlinear registration of diffusion MR images based on fiber bundles. Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2007;10(Pt 1):351–8.
In this paper, we explore the use of fiber bundles extracted from diffusion MR images for a nonlinear registration algorithm. We employ a white matter atlas to automatically label major fiber bundles and to establish correspondence between subjects. We propose a polyaffine framework to calculate a smooth and invertible nonlinear warp field based on these correspondences, and derive an analytical solution for the reorientation of the tensor fields under the polyaffine transformation. We demonstrate our algorithm on a group of subjects and show that it performs comparable to a higher dimensional nonrigid registration algorithm.
Niethammer M, Bouix S, Aja-Fernández S, Westin CF, Shenton ME. Outlier rejection for diffusion weighted imaging. Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2007;10(Pt 1):161–8.
This paper introduces an outlier rejection and signal reconstruction method for high angular resolution diffusion weighted imaging. The approach is based on the thresholding of Laplacian measurements over the sphere of the apparent diffusion coefficient profiles defined for a given set of gradient directions. Exemplary results are presented.
Ou W, Golland P, Hämäläinen M. Sources of variability in MEG. Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2007;10(Pt 2):751–9.
This paper investigates and characterizes sources of variability in MEG signals in multi-site, multi-subject studies. Understanding these sources will help to develop efficient strategies for comparing and pooling data across repetitions of an experiment, across subjects, and across sites. In this work, we investigated somatosensory MEG data collected at three different sites and applied variance component analysis and nonparametric KL divergence analysis in order to characterize the sources of variability. Our analysis showed that inter-subject differences are the biggest factor in the signal variability. We demonstrated that the timing of the deflections is very consistent in the early somatosensory response, which justifies a direct comparison of deflection peak times acquired from different visits, subjects, and systems. Compared with deflection peak times, deflection magnitudes have larger variation across sites; modeling of this variability is necessary for data pooling.
Kindlmann G, Estepar RSJ, Niethammer M, Haker S, Westin CF. Geodesic-loxodromes for diffusion tensor interpolation and difference measurement. Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2007;10(Pt 1):1–9.
In algorithms for processing diffusion tensor images, two common ingredients are interpolating tensors, and measuring the distance between them. We propose a new class of interpolation paths for tensors, termed geodesic-loxodromes, which explicitly preserve clinically important tensor attributes, such as mean diffusivity or fractional anisotropy, while using basic differential geometry to interpolate tensor orientation. This contrasts with previous Riemannian and Log-Euclidean methods that preserve the determinant. Path integrals of tangents of geodesic-loxodromes generate novel measures of over-all difference between two tensors, and of difference in shape and in orientation.
Bhalerao A, Westin CF. Hyperspherical von Mises-Fisher mixture (HvMF) modelling of high angular resolution diffusion MRI. Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2007;10(Pt 1):236–43.
A mapping of unit vectors onto a 5D hypersphere is used to model and partition ODFs from HARDI data. This mapping has a number of useful and interesting properties and we make a link to interpretation of the second order spherical harmonic decompositions of HARDI data. The paper presents the working theory and experiments of using a von Mises-Fisher mixture model for directional samples. The MLE of the second moment of the HvMF pdf can also be related to fractional anisotropy. We perform error analysis of the estimation scheme in single and multi-fibre regions and then show how a penalised-likelihood model selection method can be employed to differentiate single and multiple fibre regions.
Golland P, Golland Y, Malach R. Detection of spatial activation patterns as unsupervised segmentation of fMRI data. Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2007;10(Pt 1):110–8.
In functional connectivity analysis, networks of interest are defined based on correlation with the mean time course of a user-selected ’seed’ region. In this work we propose to simultaneously estimate the optimal representative time courses that summarize the fMRI data well and the partition of the volume into a set of disjoint regions that are best explained by these representative time courses. Our approach offers two advantages. First, is removes the sensitivity of the analysis to the details of the seed selection. Second, it substantially simplifies group analysis by eliminating the need for a subject-specific threshold at which correlation values are deemed significant. This unsupervised technique generalizes connectivity analysis to situations where candidate seeds are difficult to identify reliably or are unknown. Our experimental results indicate that the functional segmentation provides a robust, anatomically meaningful and consistent model for functional connectivity in fMRI.
Yeo BTT, Sabuncu MR, Desikan R, Fischl B, Golland P. Effects of registration regularization and atlas sharpness on segmentation accuracy. Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2007;10(Pt 1):683–91.
In this paper, we propose a unified framework for computing atlases from manually labeled data at various degrees of "sharpness" and the joint registration-segmentation of a new brain with these atlases. In non-rigid registration, the tradeoff between warp regularization and image fidelity is typically set empirically. In segmentation, this leads to a probabilistic atlas of arbitrary "sharpness": weak regularization results in well-aligned training images and a "sharp" atlas; strong regularization yields a "blurry" atlas. We study the effects of this tradeoff in the context of cortical surface parcellation by comparing three special cases of our framework, namely: progressive registration-segmentation of a new brain to increasingly "sharp" atlases with increasingly flexible warps; secondly, progressive registration to a single atlas with increasingly flexible warps; and thirdly, registration to a single atlas with fixed constrained warps. The optimal parcellation in all three cases corresponds to a unique balance of atlas "sharpness" and warp regularization that yield statistically significant improvements over the previously demonstrated parcellation results.