Abstract

Neurological and psychiatric disorders often feature correlated changes in the shape of the brain. More recent evidence also indicates that experience and learning can influence brain shape as well. Here we present a series of techniques for assessing brain shape - and especially changes in brain-shape - from structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans. The two main methods that will be considered are the extraction of the cerebral cortex and subsequent measurements of cortical thickness as well as non-linear registration techniques and the analysis of the resulting deformation fields. Application to both human studies and high-resolution imaging of mouse models will be considered.