Anatomical Longitudinal Cortical Surface Registration

Aakash Saboo, Ashleigh Davies, Nashira Baena, Kaili Liang, Jiaxin Xiao, Yourong Guo, Renato Besenczi, Jonathan O'Muircheartaigh, Emma C. Robinson

Keywords: Geometric Deep Learning, Registration, Deformation

TL;DR: Register surfaces using native anatomical surfaces instead of spherical projection which improves registration metrics

Abstract: Longitudinal cortical surface registration is essential for accurately characterizing developmental and neurodegenerative trajectories, thereby facilitating a mechanistic understanding of cortical growth and the identification of biomarkers. In this work, we present a novel longitudinal registration framework that operates directly on complex anatomical geometries by integrating a learning-based network with pairwise instance optimization. This hybrid strategy leverages the network to establish a robust initial alignment, which is subsequently refined through optimization to ensure high-fidelity registration. We demonstrate that this method yields growth maps with superior smoothness compared to baselines, enhancing their clinical utility, while rigorously preserving topological integrity as evidenced by analyses of self-intersecting faces, areal distortion, and anisotropic strain; source code will be made available upon acceptance.

Primary Subject Area: Geometric Deep Learning

Secondary Subject Area: Image Registration

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Submission Number: 289