Cited by 407Medical Image Segmentation TechniquesAdvanced MRI Techniques and ApplicationsFunctional Brain Connectivity Studies

A new method for improving functional-to-structural MRI alignment using local Pearson correlation

Open access
Saad, Ziad S., Glen, Daniel R., Chen, Gang, Beauchamp, Michael S., Desai, Rutvik, Cox, Robert W.·2009·NeuroImage

Abstract

Accurate registration of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) T2-weighted volumes to same-subject high-resolution T1-weighted structural volumes is important for Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) FMRI and crucial for applications such as cortical surface-based analyses and pre-surgical planning. Such registration is generally implemented by minimizing a cost functional, which measures the mismatch between two image volumes over the group of proper affine transformations. Widely used cost functionals, such as mutual information (MI) and correlation ratio (CR), appear to yield decent alignments when visually judged by matching outer brain contours. However, close inspection reveals that internal brain structures are often significantly misaligned. Poor registration is most evident in the ventricles and sulcal folds, where CSF is concentrated. This observation motivated our development of an improved modality-specific cost functional which uses a weighted local Pearson coefficient (LPC) to align T2- and T1-weighted images. In the absence of an alignment gold standard, we used three human observers blinded to registration method to provide an independent assessment of the quality of the registration for each cost functional. We found that LPC performed significantly better (p<0.001) than generic cost functionals including MI and CR. Generic cost functionals were very often not minimal near the best alignment, thereby suggesting that optimization is not the cause of their failure. Lastly, we emphasize the importance of precise visual inspection of alignment quality and present an automated method for generating composite images that help capture errors of misalignment.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2008.09.037

Cites

33 of 33 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • LPC cost functional alignment provides superior spatial alignment between T2*- and T1-weighted images near ventricles compared to generic cost functionals.

    “compared to generic cost functionals, provides superior spatial alignment between T2*- and T1-weighted images in brain structures near the ventricles (Saad et al., 2009).”

    From Phasic and sustained fear in humans elicits distinct patterns of brain activity (2011) · cites this paper as Saad et al., 2009

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

4 of the 37 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Deriche R 1987 Optimal edge detection using recursive filtering International Journal of Computer Vision 167 187
  2. Taneja IJ 2005 Refinement Inequalities Among Symmetric Divergence Measures The Australian Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications 2 1 23

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Saad, Z. S., Glen, D. R., Chen, G., Beauchamp, M. S., Desai, R., & Cox, R. W.
Affiliations
  • National Institutes of Health (US)
  • The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (US)
  • Medical College of Wisconsin (US)
Corresponding author
Cox, Robert W.
Venue
NeuroImage
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2009-02
Volume
44
Issue
3
Pages
839-848
ISSN
1053-8119 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2018731294
Cited by
405
References
37
Citations by year
2026: 12 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 30 · 2020: 30 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 21 · 2015: 37 · 2014: 33 · 2013: 36 · 2012: 26
FWCI
20.56
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • NeuroImage (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • Scholar Commons (University of South Carolina) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • National Science Foundation
  • National Institutes of Health
  • National Institute of Mental Health (Z01MH002888)
  • National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R01DC010783, R03DC008416)
  • National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01NS033576, 2R01NS33576-11)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Medical Image Segmentation Techniques
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced MRI Techniques and Applications
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
Keywords
cost functional, mutual information, correlation ratio, BOLD fMRI, surgical planning, composite images, CsF
MeSH terms
Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, Brain, Data Interpretation, Statistical, Humans, Image Enhancement, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Pattern Recognition, Automated, Sensitivity and Specificity, Statistics as Topic, Subtraction Technique, Reproducibility of Results, Echo-Planar Imaging, Imaging, Three-Dimensional

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review