Abstract #0748

Multi-Channel Hybrid-Aided Registration of Multiple Spaces (MCHARM): Diffusion & Structural Image Co-Registration

Frederick William Damen¹,², Yi Sui¹,³, Xiaohong Joe Zhou¹,⁴

¹Center for MR Research, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States; ²Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United States; ³Department of Bioengineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States; ⁴Departments of Radiology, Neurosurgery, and Bioengineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States

Many diffusion MRI applications require co-registering a diffusion image based on EPI acquisitions to a high-resolution anatomical image; however, the contrast difference between diffusion and anatomical images poses a problem. We report a novel method, coined as multi-channel hybrid-aided registration of multiple spaces (mCHARM), to co-reregister diffusion images to T1-weighted images using a synthesized diffusion multi-channel hybrid (DMCH) image that mimics the contrast of a T1-weighted image. Our results from ten human volunteers have demonstrated that mCHARM improves the registration accuracy and produces reliable FA skeleton mask for tract-based spatial statistics analysis.