Segmentation of Thalamic Nuclei from DTI using Spectral Clustering

Ulas Ziyan, David Tuch, C.-F. Westin
Ninth International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI'06)
Pages 807-814
October, 2006

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Abstract

Recent work shows that diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) can help resolving thalamic nuclei based on the characteristic fiber orientation of the corticothalamic/thalamocortical striations within each nucleus. In this paper we describe a novel segmentation method based on spectral clustering. We use Markovian relaxation to handle spatial information in a natural way, and we explicitly minimize the normalized cut criteria of the spectral clustering for a better optimization. Using this modified spectral clustering algorithm, we can resolve the organization of the thalamic nuclei into groups and subgroups solely based on the voxel affinity matrix, avoiding the need for explicitly defined cluster centers. The identification of nuclear subdivisions can facilitate localization of functional activation and pathology to individual nuclear subgroups.

A schematic outline of spectral segmentation algorithm. (A) A single slice tensor data (B) Initial graph corresponding to Ws (C) Unordered W (D) Ordered and clustered W (E) Clusters on the slice (F) Clusters in 3D.

Reference

Ziyan U, Tuch D, Westin CF. Segmentation of thalamic nuclei from DTI using spectral clustering. In Ninth International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI'06), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4191. Copenhagen, Denmark, 2006;807-814.

Bibtex entry

@InProceedings{ziyanMICCAI06,
  author         = "Ulas Ziyan and David Tuch and Carl-Fredrik Westin",        
  title          = "Segmentation of Thalamic Nuclei from {DTI} using Spectral  
                   Clustering",                                                
  booktitle      = "Ninth International Conference on Medical Image Computing  
                   and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI'06)",            
  month          = "October",                                                  
  year           = "2006",                                                     
  pages          = "807--814",                                                 
  series         = "Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4191",                   
  address        = "Copenhagen, Denmark"}

Grants

NINDS NS46532, NCRR RR14075, NCI CA09502, NIH P41-RR13218 (NAC), NIH U54-EB005149 (NAMIC)

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