Infant Brain Head Modelling for EEG Source Localization

Electroencephalography (EEG) is a noninvasive tool for studying cognitive development and brain functions in infants. The accuracy of EEG source localization highly depends on the precision of realistic head models incorporating the anatomical geometry of scalp, skull, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and brain tissues. In this study, we created four realistic head models for an infant at different ages (1, 6, 9 and 24 months) to investigated changes in the anatomical geometry of CSF, fontanels, skull, gray and white matter. In the first step of this study, we extracted the brain from CT and magnetic resonance (MR) images. These brain masks were used for registration of CT and MR images. In the second step, Ibeat toolbox were used to segment infant brain tissues consisting of gray matter (GM), white matter (WM) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). In the third step, the cranial bones and fontanels were segmented using active contours. Finally the scalp was obtained by removing the segmented tissues from input image. Our results show significant geometrical changes in the extent and thickness of different head tissues especially CSF and fontanels. In this study we developed a framework for head model creation based on co-registered CT and MR images of infants at different ages.

Keywords:

Electroencephalography , Cerebrospinal fluid , Brain head modelling