Optimized conformal parameterization of cortical surfaces using shape based matching of landmark curves

In this work, we find meaningful parameterizations of cortical surfaces utilizing prior anatomical information in the form of anatomical landmarks (sulci curves) on the surfaces. Specifically we generate close to conformal parametrizations that also give a shape-based correspondence between the landmark curves. We propose a variational energy that measures the harmonic energy of the parameterization maps, and the shape dissimilarity between mapped points on the landmark curves. The novelty is that the computed maps are guaranteed to give a shape-based diffeomorphism between the landmark curves. We achieve this by intrinsically modelling our search space of maps as flows of smooth vector fields that do not flow across the landmark curves, and by using the local surface geometry on the curves to define a shape measure. Such parameterizations ensure consistent correspondence between anatomical features, ensuring correct averaging and comparison of data across subjects. The utility of our model is demonstrated in experiments on cortical surfaces with landmarks delineated, which show that our computed maps give a shape-based alignment of the sulcal curves without significantly impairing conformality. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.