Abstract
Through
intraoperative electrical stimulation
mapping, it is possible to
identify sites on the
surface of the brain that are
essential for language function. Interesting correlations have been
found between the distribution
of these sites and
behavioral traits such as verbal
IQ. In previous
work, tools were developed for
building a reconstruction of a patient's cortical surface and using it to
recover coordinates of essential language
sites. However, considerable
expertise was required
to produce good reconstructions.
This paper describes an improved version of the mapping procedure, in which
segmentation is driven by a 3-D
shape model. The model-based
approach provides
more intuitive control over the
system, allowing a
trained user to complete a
surface reconstruction
and mapping in about two hours.
This level of
performance makes it feasible to
gather language
maps for a large number of
patients, which hopefully will lead to significant new findings about language
organization in the brain.