Quantification of Cerebral Grey and White Matter Asymmetry from MRI

We present a completely automated procedure for measuring left and right hemispheric asymmetry in cerebral grey and white matter volumes from MR images using a chain of state-of-the-art image analysis algorithms. After bias correction and tissue classification, left and right hemispheres are separated by non-rigid registration to a template image in which both hemispheres have been carefully segmented. Volume renderings of each hemisphere separately demonstrate the high quality of the resulting segmentations. Because all steps in the procedure are completely automated and do not require user specified parameters, the results are highly reproducible and consistent. We present quantitative results obtained from a database of MR images of 40 schizophrenic patients and 31 normal controls.