Meeting Banner
Abstract #1778

Automated Segmentation of the Human Amygdala using High Angular Diffusion Imaging (HARDI) and Spectral k-means Clustering

Brian David Stirling 1 , Yu-Chien Wu 1 , Long Sha 1,2 , Jim Haxby 1 , and Paul J Whalen 1

1 Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, United States, 2 Neuroscience Institute, New York University, New York, NY, United States

Despite the functional relevance and unique circuitry of each human amygdaloid subnucleus, there has yet to be an efficient imaging method for identifying these regions. The present study uses High Angular Resolution Diffusion Imaging (HARDI), high spatial resolution, and spectral k-means clustering to segment the amygdala. Clustering was performed on the similarity matrices generated from the spherical harmonic (SH) coefficients of the whole structure orientation distribution function (ODF) across 32 subjects. The results show that these methods were able to significantly segment the amygdala into 3 distinct regions: a medial region, a posterior-superior-lateral region, and an anterior-inferior-lateral region.

This abstract and the presentation materials are available to members only; a login is required.

Join Here