Authors:
Sérgio Pereira
;
José Mariz
;
Nuno Sousa
;
J. H. Correia
and
Carlos Silva
Affiliation:
University of Minho, Portugal
Keyword(s):
Virchow-Robin Spaces, Lacunar Stroke, MRI, Medical Image Analysis, Automatic Tool.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Bioimaging
;
Biomedical Engineering
;
Image Processing Methods
;
Medical Imaging and Diagnosis
Abstract:
Virchow-Robin Spaces surround the perforating arteries of the brain and sometimes they become dilated.
Studies suggest that those structures are correlated with some conditions such as lacunar strokes, small vessel
diseases, multiple sclerosis or even normal aging. However, the majority of those studies are based on the
detection of those structures by a human expert, in some regions of interest, which is prone to the subjectivity
of the person doing the task. Moreover, dilated Virchow-Robin Spaces may look similar to lacunar strokes,
making them difficult to identify. Few works have been proposed on the computational detection of dilated
Virchow-Robin Spaces. In this paper, we propose a fully automatic tool, capable of preprocessing the magnetic
resonance images, extract the most relevant regions of interest and detect dilated Virchow-Robin Spaces. Such
a tool may be useful to eliminate human subjectivity, but also to improve the reproducibility of the studies,
leading to more relia
ble correlations. An application to visualize and count the detected structures was also
built, with the aim of helping in a study of the correlation of lacunar strokes, Virchow-Robin Spaces and
vascular dementia.
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