Automatic Construction of 3D Statistical Deformation Models: Application to Patients with Schizophrenia

In this paper we introduce the concept of statistical deformation models (SDM) which allow the construction of average models of the anatomy and their variability. SDMs are built by performing a statistical analysis of the deformations required to map anatomical features in one subject into the corresponding features of another subject. We demonstrate the applicability of this new framework to MR images of the brain and show results for the construction of anatomical models from 25 different subjects.