Automatic labelling of the human cortical surface using sulcal basins

Human brain mapping aims at establishing correspondences between brain function and brain anatomy. One of the most intriguing problems in this field is the high interpersonal variability of human neuroanatomy which makes studies across many subjects very difficult. The cortical folds ('sulci') often serve as landmarks that help to establish correspondences between subjects. In this paper, we will present a method that automatically detects and attributes neuroanatomical names to the cortical folds using image analysis methods applied to magnetic resonance data of human brains. We claim that the cortical folds can be subdivided into a number of substructures which we call sulcal basins. The concept of sulcal basins allows us to establish a complete parcellation of the cortical surface into separate regions. These regions are neuroanatomically meaningful and can be identified from MR data sets across many subjects. Sulcal basins are segmented using a region growing approach. The automatic labelling is achieved by a model matching technique.