The study of brain nuclei in neuroimaging poses challenges owing to its small size. Many neuroimaging studies have been reported for effectively locating these nuclei and characterizing their functional connectivity with other regions of the brain. Hypothalamus, Locus Coeruleus, and Ventral Tegmental area are such nuclei found in the human brain, which are challenging to visualize owing to their size and lack of tissue contrast with surrounding regions. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) analysis on these nuclei enabled researchers to characterize their connectivity with other regions of the brain. An automated method to successfully isolate voxels belonging to these nuclei is still a great challenge in the field of neuroimaging. Atlas-based segmentation is the most common method used to study the anatomy and the functional connectivity of these brain nuclei. However, atlas-based segmentation has shown inconsistency due to variation in brain atlases owing to different population studies. Therefore, in this study, we try to address the research problem of brain nuclei imaging using a clustering-based approach. Clustering-based methods separate of voxels utilizing their structural and functional homogeneity to each other. This type of method can help locate and cluster the voxels belonging to the nuclei. Elimination of erroneous voxels by the use of clustering methods would significantly improve the structural and functional analysis of the nuclei in the human brain. Since several clustering methods are available in neuroimaging studies, the goal of this study is to find a robust model that has less variability across different subjects. Non-parametrical statistical analysis was performed as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) based studies are corrupted with noise and artefact. Statistical investigation on the fMRI data helps to assess the significant experimental effects.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kth-284443 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Manickam, Sameer |
| Publisher | KTH, Skolan för kemi, bioteknologi och hälsa (CBH) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | TRITA-CBH-GRU ; 2020:110 |
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