Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Improved accuracy of brain MRI/SPECT registration using a two-cluster SPECT normalization algorithm and a combinative similarity measure: application to the evaluation of Parkinson's disease

  • ORIGINAL ARTICLE
  • Published:
Annals of Nuclear Medicine Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objective

Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) of dopamine transporters with technetium-99-labeled tropane derivative 99mTc-TRODAT-1 has recently been suggested to offer valuable information in assessing the functionality of dopaminergic systems. To facilitate the non-invasive examination of the dopamine concentration in vivo, registering magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and SPECT image is important. This article proposes a new similarity measure for MRI/SPECT registration.

Methods

The proposed similarity measure combines anatomic features that are characterized by specific binding of nuclear medicine and the distribution of image intensity that are characterized by the normalized mutual information (NMI). A preprocess, a novel two-cluster SPECT normalization algorithm, is also proposed.

Results

Compared with the conventional NMI-based registration algorithm, the proposed registration framework reduces the target of registration error from >7 mm to approximately 4 mm. The error of the specific-to-non-specific 99mTc-TRODAT-1 binding ratio (BR), a quantitative measure of TRODAT receptor binding, is also reduced from 0.45 to 0.08 in the healthy subjects and from 0.28 to 0.12 in Parkinson's disease patients.

Conclusions

A suitable color map, such as “rainbow,” for image display enables the two-cluster SPECT normalization algorithm to provide clinically meaningful visual contrast. In addition, registering MRI/SPECT based on the proposed similarity measure improves the accuracy compared with the conventional NMI-based algorithm.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. HK Pohjonen SE Savolainen PH Nikkinen VP Poutanen ET Korppi-Tommola BK Liewendahl (1996) ArticleTitleAbdominal SPECT/MRI fusion applied to the study of splenic and hepatic uptake of radiolabeled thrombocytes and colloids Ann Nucl Med 10 409–17 Occurrence Handle9006726 Occurrence Handle1:STN:280:DyaK2s7lvFertA%3D%3D Occurrence Handle10.1007/BF03164802

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. GJ Forster C Laumann O Nickel P Kann O Rieker P Bartenstein (2003) ArticleTitleSPET/CT image co-registration in the abdomen with a simple and cost-effective tool Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 30 32–9 Occurrence Handle12483407 Occurrence Handle10.1007/s00259-002-1013-0 Occurrence Handle1:CAS:528:DC%2BD38XpsV2iu78%3D

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. JBA Habraken J Booij P Slomka EB Sokole EAV Royen (1999) ArticleTitleQuantification and visualization of defects of the functional dopaminergic system using an automatic algorithm J Nucl Med 40 1091–7 Occurrence Handle10405125 Occurrence Handle1:STN:280:DyaK1Mzjt1Sisw%3D%3D

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. GE Fakrhi SC Moore P Maksud A Aurengo MF Kijewski (2001) ArticleTitleAbsolute activity quantitation in simultaneous 123I/99mTc brain SPECT J Nucl Med 42 300–8

    Google Scholar 

  5. YH Weng TC Yen MC Chen PF Kao KY Tzen RS Chen et al. (2004) ArticleTitleSensitivity and specificity of 99mTc-TRODAT-1 SPECT imaging in differentiating patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease from healthy subjects J Nucl Med 45 393–401 Occurrence Handle15001678 Occurrence Handle1:CAS:528:DC%2BD2cXivVCjurg%3D

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. C Grova A Biraben JM Scarabin P Jannin I Buvat H Benali et al. (2001) A methodology to validate MRI/SPECT registration methods using realistic simulated SPECT data: medical image computing and computer-assisted intervention MICCAI 2001. Lecture notes in computer science, vol. 2208 Springer Netherlands 275–82

    Google Scholar 

  7. T Yokoi T Soma H Shinohara H Matsuda (2004) ArticleTitleAccuracy and reproducibility of co-registration techniques based on mutual information and normalized mutual information for MRI and SPECT brain images Ann Nucl Med 18 659–67 Occurrence Handle15682846 Occurrence Handle10.1007/BF02985959

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. L Thurfjell YH Lau JLR Andersson BF Hutton (2000) ArticleTitleImproved efficiency for MR-SPET registration based on mutual information Eur J Nucl Med 27 847–56 Occurrence Handle10952497 Occurrence Handle10.1007/s002590000270 Occurrence Handle1:STN:280:DC%2BD3M%2Fot1aqtg%3D%3D

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. YM Zhu SM Cochoff (2002) ArticleTitleInfluence of implementation parameters on registration of MR and SPECT brain images by maximization of mutual information J Nucl Med 43 160–6 Occurrence Handle11850479

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. F Maes A Collignon D Vandermeulen G Marchal P Suetens (1997) ArticleTitleMultimodality image registration by maximization of mutual information IEEE Trans Med Imaging 16 187–98 Occurrence Handle9101328 Occurrence Handle10.1109/42.563664 Occurrence Handle1:STN:280:DyaK2s3lsF2qtQ%3D%3D

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. A Collignon F Maes D Delaere D Vandermeulen P Suetens G Marchal (1995) Automated multi-modality image registration based on information theory Y Bizais C Barillot R Di Paola (Eds) Information processing in medical imaging Kluwer Dordrecht 263–74

    Google Scholar 

  12. Viola P, Wells WM III. Alignment by maximization of mutual information. In: Proceedings of the 5th international conference on computer vision, Cambridge, MA; 1995. p. 16–23

  13. JPW Pluim JBA Maintz MA Viergever (2003) ArticleTitleMutual-information-based registration of medical images: a survey IEEE Trans Med Imaging 22 986–1004 Occurrence Handle12906253 Occurrence Handle10.1109/TMI.2003.815867

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. C Studholme DLG Hill DJ Hawkes (1999) ArticleTitleAn overlap invariant entropy measure of 3D medical image alignment Pattern Recognit 32 71–86 Occurrence Handle10.1016/S0031-3203(98)00091-0

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. ER Denton LI Sonoda D Rueckert SC Rankin C Hayes MO Leach et al. (1999) ArticleTitleComparison and evaluation of rigid, affine, and nonrigid registration of breast MR images J Comput Assist Tomogr 23 800–5 Occurrence Handle10524870 Occurrence Handle10.1097/00004728-199909000-00031 Occurrence Handle1:STN:280:DyaK1Mvlt1Gjsw%3D%3D

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. PE Radau PJ Slomka P Julin L Svensson L-O Wahlund (2001) ArticleTitleEvaluation of linear registration algorithms for brain SPECT and the errors due to hypoperfusion lesions Med Phys 28 1660–8 Occurrence Handle11548935 Occurrence Handle10.1118/1.1388894 Occurrence Handle1:STN:280:DC%2BD3MvpvFejtA%3D%3D

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. C Stodholme E Novotny IG Zubal JS Duncan (2001) ArticleTitleEstimating tissue deformation between functional images induced by intracranial electrode implantation using anatomical MRI Neuroimage 13 561–76 Occurrence Handle10.1006/nimg.2000.0692

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. YW Lim SU Lee (1990) ArticleTitleOn the color image segmentation algorithm based on the thresholding and the fuzzy c-means techniques Pattern Recognit 23 935–52 Occurrence Handle10.1016/0031-3203(90)90103-R

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. J Suckling T Sigmundsson K Greenwood ET Bullmore (1999) ArticleTitleA modified fuzzy clustering algorithm for operator independent brain tissue classification of dual echo MR images Magn Reson Imaging 17 1065–76 Occurrence Handle10463658 Occurrence Handle10.1016/S0730-725X(99)00055-7 Occurrence Handle1:STN:280:DyaK1MzptFaquw%3D%3D

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. WE Phillips RP Velthuizen S Phuphanich LO Hall LP Clarke ML Silbiger (1995) ArticleTitleApplication of fuzzy c-means segmentation technique for differentiation in MR images of a hemorrhagic glioblastoma multiforme Magn Reson Imaging 13 277–90 Occurrence Handle7739370 Occurrence Handle10.1016/0730-725X(94)00093-I

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. F Maes D Vandermeulen P Suetens (1999) ArticleTitleComparative evaluation of multiresolution optimization strategies for multimodality image registration by maximization of mutual information Med Image Anal 3 373–86 Occurrence Handle10709702 Occurrence Handle10.1016/S1361-8415(99)80030-9 Occurrence Handle1:STN:280:DC%2BD3c7nt12gtA%3D%3D

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. C Studholme DLG Hill DJ Hawkes (1997) ArticleTitleAutomatic three-dimensional registration of magnetic resonance and positron emission tomography brain images by multiresolution optimization of voxel similarity measures Med Phys 24 25–35 Occurrence Handle9029539 Occurrence Handle10.1118/1.598130 Occurrence Handle1:STN:280:DyaK2s7otFekug%3D%3D

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Press WH, Flannery BP, Teukolsky SA, Vetterling WT. Numerical recipes in C. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

  24. T Pfluger C Vollmar A Wismuller S Dresel F Berger P Suntheim et al. (2000) ArticleTitleQuantitative comparison of automatic and interactive methods for MRI-SPECT image registration of the brain based on 3-dimensional calculation of error J Nucl Med 41 1823–9 Occurrence Handle11079489 Occurrence Handle1:STN:280:DC%2BD3M%2FktFOlsg%3D%3D

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, Chang Gung University, Tao-Yuan, 333, Taiwan

    Jiann-Der Lee & Kun-Ju Lin

  2. Movement Disorder Section, Department of Neurology, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Chung-Hsien Huang

  3. Neuroscience Research Center, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Chung-Hsien Huang

  4. Molecular Image Center and Nuclear Medicine Department, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Linko, Taiwan

    Yi-Hsin Weng

  5. Department of Radiology and Committee on Medical Physics, the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Chin-Tu Chen

  6. Division of Medical Engineering Research, National Health Research Institutes, Zhunan, Miaoli, Taiwan

    Chin-Tu Chen

Authors
  1. Jiann-Der Lee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Chung-Hsien Huang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Yi-Hsin Weng
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Kun-Ju Lin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Chin-Tu Chen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jiann-Der Lee.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lee, JD., Huang, CH., Weng, YH. et al. Improved accuracy of brain MRI/SPECT registration using a two-cluster SPECT normalization algorithm and a combinative similarity measure: application to the evaluation of Parkinson's disease. Ann Nucl Med 21, 197–207 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12149-007-0009-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12149-007-0009-z

Key words

Search

Navigation