Tissue-Based Affine Registration of Brain Images to form a Vascular Density Atlas

Anatomic tissue atlases of the brain are widely used within the medical world and are important for identifying tissue and struc- tural aberrations and inconsistencies within an individual. Unfortunately, there are many procedures and diseases that require examination of the brain's vascular system, which is not easily identifiable in anatomic at- lases. We present a new concept of a brain vascular atlas, formed through tissue-based registration, to capture expected vascular characteristics and their variance. This vascular atlas can be used to assess the vascular variations within an individual and aid in diagnostics and pre-surgical planning. In this paper, a vascular density atlas is formed and demon- strated for use in detecting and localizing vascular anomalies.