Neuroimaging has become an accepted tool for studying neurodegeneration, neurodevelopment, and brain structure/neurocognitive relationships. Deformation based morphometry (DBM) is a method for analyzing and quantifying the relationship between brain anatomy and disease or function, typically by computing statistics using three-dimensional (3D) maps of local anatomical size derived from nonrigid image registration methods. The high-resolution morphometric analysis software currently available for DBM has limitations that prevent its wide dissemination and acceptance. The goals of this project are to develop voxel-wise statistical analysis software using public domain libraries so that the resulting product can be freely distributed, and to improve the usability of such software by 1) supporting common file formats for the importation of statistical variables and image files, and 2) implementing a graphical user interface.
The specific aims of this project are to: (1) Develop freely available voxel-wise statistical analysis software independent of proprietary libraries. (2) Add utilities for importing statistical variables in common spreadsheet formats and XML (Extensible Markup Language). (3) Expand the number of allowable file formats for reading and writing image files. (4) Create a graphical user interface. (5) Write a user manual describing how to use our voxel-wise morphometric analysis software. ? ?
