Imaging and shape analysis of the moving human fetal brain in-utero

Abstract

This paper examines new techniques that allow the formation and analysis of high resolution 3D MR images of the developing human fetal brain in utero, by carrying out object based motion correction of multi-slice MR images of the moving fetal head within deforming maternal tissues. The approaches combine modern fast snapshot slice imaging with techniques derived from computer vision to retrospectively estimate motion of regions within each slice corresponding to the fetal head. The paper specifically examines the problem of reconstructing volume images in cases of highly motion scattered slices where the density of the image data is highly variable. Voxel density maps are calculated and the reconstruction evaluated. Examples are included reconstructing full 3D image volumes from typical multi-slice clinical imaging data.