Constructing Morphometric Profiles along the Human Brain Cortex Using in vivo Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

The geometry of the brain cortex is comprised of gyri (outward folds) and sulci (inward folds). Several biological properties about the anatomy and physiology of the brain cortex have been measured at the top of the sulci and at the bottom of the gyri; however, no one has yet measured how the values of these properties (called biomarkers) change along the path joining the top of the sulci and the bottom of the gyri. In this work, a methodology to display that information is shown, using different modalities of MRI images as input. There are four main steps to the methodology: the first two consist on obtaining the lines that run on top of the gyri and at the bottom of the sulci, while the next two make use of these lines to create a geodesic path between the top of the gyri and the bottom of the sulci and assigning biomarker values to each point of this geodesic path. The results of this work are composed of the validation of the methodology and three examples of possible applications of the methodology. These applications could be applied in future work to improve the detection and study the neurodevelopment of neurodegenerative diseases.