Development of Korean Standard Brain Templates According to Gender and Age / 대한해부학회지

ABSTRACT

Researches on brain functions using MRI or PET generally involve the process that normalizes spatially the results of functional images into a standard brain template in order to find out a common activation area of multiple subjects. So far MNI305, which is Western people's standard brain template, has been commonly used. However, the brain may be different morphologically and structurally among human races, so the use of MNI305 may produce inaccurate results. Furthermore, because the size and shape of the brain vary according to gender and age, if brain temperatures are developed considering these factors, brain activation areas may be identified more precisely. This study collected MR brain images from 121 men and women in their 20s (23.0 +/-2.6 years on the average) and 99 men and women in their 40s (47.5 +/-3.7 years on the average). After eight reference points were defined using the method proposed by Nowinski, the image that had the least error from the mean distances among the reference points was selected as the representative brain image. All images were affine-transformed into the representative brain image, and average brain templates were created by age and gender through averaging the brightness of images. The results of this study may be utilized in Korean brain probability maps to be developed in the future for more precise research on the functions of Koreans' brain.