Normalization of transcranial magnetic stimulation points by means of atlas registration

Dominique Zosso, Quentin Noirhomme, Marco Davare, Benoît Macq, Etienne Olivier, Jean-Philippe Thiran, Mathieu De Craene

Abstract: Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a well-known technique to study brain function. Location of TMS points can be visualized on the subject's Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI). However inter-subject comparison is possible only after a normalization i.e. a transformation of the stimulation points to a reference atlas image. Here, we propose a generic and automatic image processing pipe-line for normalizing a collection of subjects' MRI and TMS points. The normalization uses a loop of rigid-transform followed by Basis-Splines registration. The used reference atlas is the common Montreal National Institute (MNI) brain atlas [2]. We show preliminary results from 10 subjects. Those normalized points were compared to the SPM normalization and validated by TMS experts.