| Autor: |
Caspi, Yaron, de Zwarte, Sonja M. C., Iemenschot, Iris J., Lumbreras, Raquel, de Heus, Roel, Bekker, Mireille N., Hulshoff Pol, Hilleke |
| Rok vydání: |
2022 |
| Zdroj: |
Frontiers in Neuroimaging. 1 |
| ISSN: |
2813-1193 |
| DOI: |
10.3389/fnimg.2022.996702 |
| Popis: |
Three-dimensional fetal ultrasound is commonly used to study the volumetric development of brain structures. To date, only a limited number of automatic procedures for delineating the intracranial volume exist. Hence, intracranial volume measurements from three-dimensional ultrasound images are predominantly performed manually. Here, we present and validate an automated tool to extract the intracranial volume from three-dimensional fetal ultrasound scans. The procedure is based on the registration of a brain model to a subject brain. The intracranial volume of the subject is measured by applying the inverse of the final transformation to an intracranial mask of the brain model. The automatic measurements showed a high correlation with manual delineation of the same subjects at two gestational ages, namely, around 20 and 30 weeks (linear fitting R2(20 weeks) = 0.88, R2(30 weeks) = 0.77; Intraclass Correlation Coefficients: 20 weeks=0.94, 30 weeks = 0.84). Overall, the automatic intracranial volumes were larger than the manually delineated ones (84 ± 16 vs. 76 ± 15 cm3; and 274 ± 35 vs. 237 ± 28 cm3), probably due to differences in cerebellum delineation. Notably, the automated measurements reproduced both the non-linear pattern of fetal brain growth and the increased inter-subject variability for older fetuses. By contrast, there was some disagreement between the manual and automatic delineation concerning the size of sexual dimorphism differences. The method presented here provides a relatively efficient way to delineate volumes of fetal brain structures like the intracranial volume automatically. It can be used as a research tool to investigate these structures in large cohorts, which will ultimately aid in understanding fetal structural human brain development. |
| Databáze: |
OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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