BRAINSMush

This is a tool to generate brain a volume mask from an input T1 and T2-weighted images. The resulting volume mask omits dura, skull, eyes, etc., but includes surface CSF. This application has recently been modified allowing the algorithm to run using only the T1 and T2-weighted images. In this application the following equation is optimized to minimze the variance in the resulting images across voxels within the brain.

[math]M=aT_1+bT_2[/math]

Progress:

• A new tracing (editing) tool is being developed to serve as a testing ground for the new GUI. The tracing tool uses the vtkContourWidget and is built on KWWidgets. The Slicer3 look and feel has been integrated. This tracing tool is nearing a beta release and will include the following features

1. Support for editing in multiple planes simultaneously
2. Ability to telegraph traces into other planes
3. Ability to export traces as binary images for integration into Slicer3
4. Ability to export traces as BRAINS2 mask objects
5. Traces will be saved in VTK XML format

Key Investigators:

• University of Iowa: Steven Dunn, Ronald Pierson, Greg Harris, Hans Johnson, Vincent Magnotta

Figures:

• BRAINSTracer
• 

  BRAINS Tracer showing vtkContourWidget and telegraphing of ROIs

• 

  BRAINS Tracer with the splash screen

Links:

• University of Iowa Department of Psychiatry
• University of Iowa MRI Center
• The MIND Institute

Papers: