Section: Application Domains

Deep Brain Stimulation

Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is a surgical technique, which consists in sending electrical impulses, through implanted electrodes, to specific parts of the brain for the treatment of movement and affective disorders. The technique has been initially developped for otherwise-treatment-resistant patients with essential tremors or Parkinson's disease. Its benefit in other affections, such as dystonia, obsessive-compulsive disorders, Tourette syndrome is currently investigated. The localisation of the stimulation target in specific nucleus in deep brain regions is key to the success of the surgery. This task is difficult since the target nucleus, or the precise sub-territory of a given nucleus is rarely visible in the Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) of the patients. To address this issue, a possible technique is to personalize a high-resolution histological atlas of the brain to each patient. This personalization is achieved by registering the histological atlas, which consists of an image and meshes of deep brain structures, to the pre-operative MRI of each patient. The registration is currently done by optimally aligning image intensities in the atlas and patient's MRI using a block-matching algorithm. The linear nature of the transform makes the technique robust at the cost of a lack of precision, especially for elderly patients with expanded ventricles. We investigate the use of non-linear registration techniques to optimally align both image intensities and contours of visible structures surrounding the target. We expect to improve the localisation of the target for patients with large ventricles while keeping the method robust in all cases.