VLDB 2026 Research / reviewers in the wild / expert
Alex D. Leow
dblp:68/3742
· DBLP profile ↗
33ranked-venue papers
3as first author
9since 2021 · last 2025
0000-0002-5660-8651ORCID · verified
Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several
Applied, interdisciplinary, general and emerging computing · 17 · 2 first-author · 4 since 2021Graphics, computer vision, multimedia, augmented reality and games · 14 · 2 first-author · 3 since 2021Artificial intelligence and machine learning · 10 · 1 first-author · 1 since 2021Databases, data management, data science and information retrieval · 8 · 1 since 2021Human-computer interaction and ubiquitous computing · 2 · 2 since 2021Computer networks · 1 · 1 since 2021
| Year | Publication | Venue | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | BPEN: Brain Posterior Evidential Network for trustworthy brain imaging analysis
Kai Ye 0002, Haoteng Tang, Siyuan Dai, Igor Fortel, Paul M. Thompson, Scott Mackin, Alex D. Leow, Heng Huang 0001, Liang Zhan |
Neural Networks | 7 |
| 2024 | Interpretable Spatio-Temporal Embedding for Brain Structural-Effective Network with Ordinary Differential Equation
Haoteng Tang, Siyuan Dai, Kai Ye 0002, Kun Zhao 0007, Wenlu Wang, Carl Yang 0001, Lifang He 0001, Alex D. Leow, Paul M. Thompson, Heng Huang 0001, Liang Zhan |
MICCAI (2) | 9 |
| 2023 | Smartphone-derived Virtual Keyboard Dynamics Coupled with Accelerometer Data as a Window into Understanding Brain Health: Smartphone Keyboard and Accelerometer as Window into Brain HealthabstractWe examine the feasibility of using accelerometer data exclusively collected during typing on a custom smartphone keyboard to study whether typing dynamics are associated with daily variations in mood and cognition. As part of an ongoing digital mental health study involving mood disorders, we collected data from a well-characterized clinical sample (N = 85) and classified accelerometer data per typing session into orientation (upright vs. not) and motion (active vs. not). The mood disorder group showed lower cognitive performance despite mild symptoms (depression/mania). There were also diurnal pattern differences with respect to cognitive performance: individuals with higher cognitive performance typed faster and were less sensitive to time of day. They also exhibited more well-defined diurnal patterns in smartphone keyboard usage: they engaged with the keyboard more during the day and tapered their usage more at night compared to those with lower cognitive performance, suggesting a healthier usage of their phone. Emma Ning, Andrea T. Cladek, Mindy K. Ross, Sarah Kabir, Amruta Barve, Ellyn Kennelly, Faraz Hussain 0002, Jennifer Duffecy, Scott L. Langenecker, Theresa Nguyen, Theja Tulabandhula, John Zulueta, Olusola Ajilore, Alexander P. Demos, Alex D. Leow |
CHI | 15 |
| 2023 | Bidirectional Mapping with Contrastive Learning on Multimodal Neuroimaging Data
Kai Ye 0002, Haoteng Tang, Siyuan Dai, Lei Guo 0028, Johnny Yuehan Liu, Yalin Wang 0001, Alex D. Leow, Paul M. Thompson, Heng Huang 0001, Liang Zhan |
MICCAI (3) | 7 |
| 2023 | Signed graph representation learning for functional-to-structural brain network mapping
Haoteng Tang, Lei Guo 0028, Xiyao Fu, Yalin Wang 0001, Scott Mackin, Olusola Ajilore, Alex D. Leow, Paul M. Thompson, Heng Huang 0001, Liang Zhan |
Medical Image Anal. | 7 |
| 2022 | Unified Embeddings of Structural and Functional Connectome via a Function-Constrained Structural Graph Variational Auto-Encoder
Carlo Amodeo, Igor Fortel, Olusola Ajilore, Liang Zhan, Alex D. Leow, Theja Tulabandhula |
MICCAI (1) | 5 |
| 2022 | Predicting clinically relevant changes in bipolar disorder outside the clinic walls based on pervasive technology interactions via smartphone typing dynamicsabstractModeling smartphone keyboard dynamics as the foundation of an early warning system (EWS) for mood instability holds potential to expand the reach of healthcare beyond the traditional clinic wall’s, which may lead to better ongoing care for chronic mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder. Here, we investigate the feasibility of such a system using a real-world open-science dataset. In particular, we are interested in whether passive technology interaction patterns in real-world datasets reflect findings from more controlled research trials, and the implications for clinical care. Data from 328 people who downloaded an open-science app was analyzed using a variety of machine learning methods, including different modeling methods (random forests, gradient boosting, neural networks), different types of class rebalancing, and pre-processing techniques. The aim was to predict fluctuations in PHQ scores in the weeks before the fluctuation occurred. Various feature selection methods were also employed to identify the top features driving the predictive patterns (out of total 54 starting features). Results showed predictive accuracy around ∼90%, similar to controlled research trials, while revealing a number of interesting features (e.g. PTSD and mood instability) that suggest future research avenues. The findings from our analysis appear to indicate that real-world interaction data from smartphones can be utilized as an EWS monitoring tool for mood disorders like bipolar. We also discuss the broader applicability of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) approaches to connected systems combining different forms of pervasive technology interaction (smartphones, wearables, social robots) to track everyday health status. Casey C. Bennett, Mindy K. Ross, Eu-Gene Baek, Alex D. Leow |
Pervasive Mob. Comput. | 5 |
| 2022 | Federated Multi-view Learning for Private Medical Data Integration and AnalysisabstractAlong with the rapid expansion of information technology and digitalization of health data, there is an increasing concern on maintaining data privacy while garnering the benefits in the medical field. Two critical challenges are identified: First, medical data is naturally distributed across multiple local sites, making it difficult to collectively train machine learning models without data leakage. Second, in medical applications, data are often collected from different sources and views, resulting in heterogeneity and complexity that requires reconciliation. In this article, we present a generic Federated Multi-view Learning (FedMV) framework for multi-view data leakage prevention. Specifically, we apply this framework to two types of problems based on local data availability: Vertical Federated Multi-view Learning (V-FedMV) and Horizontal Federated Multi-view Learning (H-FedMV). We experimented with real-world keyboard data collected from BiAffect study. Our results demonstrated that the proposed approach can make full use of multi-view data in a privacy-preserving way, and both V-FedMV and H-FedMV perform better than their single-view and pairwise counterparts. Besides, the framework can be easily adapted to deal with multi-view sequential data. We have developed a sequential model (S-FedMV) that takes sequence of multi-view data as input and demonstrated it experimentally. To the best of our knowledge, this framework is the first to consider both vertical and horizontal diversification in the multi-view setting, as well as their sequential federated learning. Sicong Che, Zhaoming Kong, Hao Peng 0001, Lichao Sun 0001, Alex D. Leow, Yong Chen 0016, Lifang He 0001 |
ACM Trans. Intell. Syst. Technol. | 5 |
| 2021 | Kollector: Detecting Fraudulent Activities on Mobile Devices Using Deep LearningabstractWith the rapid growth in smartphone usage, preventing leakage of personal information and privacy has become a challenging task. One major consequence of such leakage is impersonation. This type of illegal usage is nearly impossible to prevent as existing preventive mechanisms (e.g., passcode and fingerprinting), are not capable of continuously monitoring usage and determining whether the user is authorized. Once unauthorized users can defeat the initial protection mechanisms, they would have full access to the devices including using stored passwords to access high-value websites. We present Kollector, a new framework to detect impersonation based on a multi-view bagging deep learning approach to capture sequential tapping information on the smart-phone's keyboard. We construct a sequential-tapping biometrics model to continuously authenticate the user while typing. We empirically evaluated our system using real-world phone usage sessions from 26 users over eight weeks. We then compared our model against commonly used shallow machine techniques and find that our system performs better than other approaches and can achieve an 8.42 percent equal error rate, a 94.24 percent accuracy and a 94.41 percent H-mean using only the accelerometer and only five keyboard taps. We also experiment with using only three keyboard taps and find that the system still yields high accuracy while giving additional opportunities to make more decisions that can result in more accurate final decisions. Lichao Sun 0001, Bokai Cao, Ji Wang 0002, Witawas Srisa-an, Philip S. Yu, Alex D. Leow, Stephen Checkoway |
IEEE Trans. Mob. Comput. | 6 |
| 2020 | Diagnosing Chemotherapy-Related Cognitive Impairment Using Digital Phenotyping
Marehan Waly, Teresa Helsten, Nhan Vuong, Amanda Gooding, William Frederick, Alex D. Leow, Jejo Koola |
AMIA | 6 |
| 2020 | Effects of mood and aging on keystroke dynamics metadata and their diurnal patterns in a large open-science sample: A BiAffect iOS studyabstractOBJECTIVE: Ubiquitous technologies can be leveraged to construct ecologically relevant metrics that complement traditional psychological assessments. This study aims to determine the feasibility of smartphone-derived real-world keyboard metadata to serve as digital biomarkers of mood. MATERIALS AND METHODS: BiAffect, a real-world observation study based on a freely available iPhone app, allowed the unobtrusive collection of typing metadata through a custom virtual keyboard that replaces the default keyboard. User demographics and self-reports for depression severity (Patient Health Questionnaire-8) were also collected. Using >14 million keypresses from 250 users who reported demographic information and a subset of 147 users who additionally completed at least 1 Patient Health Questionnaire, we employed hierarchical growth curve mixed-effects models to capture the effects of mood, demographics, and time of day on keyboard metadata. RESULTS: We analyzed 86 541 typing sessions associated with a total of 543 Patient Health Questionnaires. Results showed that more severe depression relates to more variable typing speed (P < .001), shorter session duration (P < .001), and lower accuracy (P < .05). Additionally, typing speed and variability exhibit a diurnal pattern, being fastest and least variable at midday. Older users exhibit slower and more variable typing, as well as more pronounced slowing in the evening. The effects of aging and time of day did not impact the relationship of mood to typing variables and were recapitulated in the 250-user group. CONCLUSIONS: Keystroke dynamics, unobtrusively collected in the real world, are significantly associated with mood despite diurnal patterns and effects of age, and thus could serve as a foundation for constructing digital biomarkers. Claudia Vesel, Homa Rashidisabet, John Zulueta, Jonathan P. Stange, Jennifer Duffecy, Faraz Hussain 0002, Andrea Piscitello, John S. Bark, Scott A. Langenecker, Shannon Young, Erin Mounts, Larsson Omberg, Peter C. Nelson, Raeanne C. Moore, Dave Koziol, Keith Bourne, Casey C. Bennett, Olusola Ajilore, Alexander P. Demos, Alex D. Leow |
J. Am. Medical Informatics Assoc. | 20 |
| 2019 | Identifying Early Hepatic Encephalopathy Through Digital Phenotyping
Jejo Koola, Veeral Ajmera, Job Godino, Lauren L'Heureux, Amanda Gooding, Marc Norman, Faraz Hussain 0002, Alex D. Leow |
AMIA | 8 |
| 2019 | Brain Dynamics Through the Lens of Statistical Mechanics by Unifying Structure and Function
Igor Fortel, Mitchell Butler, Laura E. Korthauer, Liang Zhan, Olusola Ajilore, Ira Driscoll, Anastasios Sidiropoulos, Yanfu Zhang, Lei Guo 0028, Heng Huang 0001, Dan Schonfeld, Alex D. Leow |
MICCAI (5) | 12 |
| 2018 | Multi-View Multi-Graph Embedding for Brain Network Clustering AnalysisabstractNetwork analysis of human brain connectivity is critically important for understanding brain function and disease states. Embedding a brain network as a whole graph instance into a meaningful low-dimensional representation can be used to investigate disease mechanisms and inform therapeutic interventions. Moreover, by exploiting information from multiple neuroimaging modalities or views, we are able to obtain an embedding that is more useful than the embedding learned from an individual view. Therefore, multi-view multi-graph embedding becomes a crucial task. Currently only a few studies have been devoted to this topic, and most of them focus on vector-based strategy which will cause structural information contained in the original graphs lost. As a novel attempt to tackle this problem, we propose Multi-view Multi-graph Embedding M2E by stacking multi-graphs into multiple partially-symmetric tensors and using tensor techniques to simultaneously leverage the dependencies and correlations among multi-view and multi-graph brain networks. Extensive experiments on real HIV and bipolar disorder brain network datasets demonstrate the superior performance of M2E on clustering brain networks by leveraging the multi-view multi-graph interactions. Ye Liu 0006, Lifang He 0001, Bokai Cao, Philip S. Yu, Ann B. Ragin, Alex D. Leow |
AAAI | 6 |
| 2018 | dpMood: Exploiting Local and Periodic Typing Dynamics for Personalized Mood PredictionabstractMood disorders are common and associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Early diagnosis has the potential to greatly alleviate the burden of mental illness and the ever increasing costs to families and society. Mobile devices provide us a promising opportunity to detect the users' mood in an unobtrusive manner. In this study, we use a custom keyboard which collects keystrokes' meta-data and accelerometer values. Based on the collected time series data in multiple modalities, we propose a deep personalized mood prediction approach, called dpMood, by integrating convolutional and recurrent deep architectures as well as exploring each individual's circadian rhythm. Experimental results not only demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of using smart-phone meta-data to predict the presence and severity of mood disturbances in bipolar subjects, but also show the potential of personalized medical treatment for mood disorders. He Huang 0008, Bokai Cao, Philip S. Yu, Chang-Dong Wang 0001, Alex D. Leow |
ICDM | 5 |
| 2018 | Exact Combinatorial Inference for Brain Images
Moo K. Chung, Zhan Luo, Alex D. Leow, Andrew L. Alexander, Richard J. Davidson, H. Hill Goldsmith |
MICCAI (1) | 3 |
| 2018 | Phase Angle Spatial Embedding (PhASE) - A Kernel Method for Studying the Topology of the Human Functional Connectome
Zachery Morrissey, Liang Zhan, Hyekyoung Lee, Johnson J. G. Keiriz, Angus G. Forbes, Olusola Ajilore, Alex D. Leow, Moo K. Chung |
MICCAI (3) | 7 |
| 2017 | Multi-view Clustering with Graph Embedding for Connectome AnalysisabstractMulti-view clustering has become a widely studied problem in the area of unsupervised learning. It aims to integrate multiple views by taking advantages of the consensus and complimentary information from multiple views. Most of the existing works in multi-view clustering utilize the vector-based representation for features in each view. However, in many real-world applications, instances are represented by graphs, where those vector-based models cannot fully capture the structure of the graphs from each view. To solve this problem, in this paper we propose a Multi-view Clustering framework on graph instances with Graph Embedding (MCGE). Specifically, we model the multi-view graph data as tensors and apply tensor factorization to learn the multi-view graph embeddings, thereby capturing the local structure of graphs. We build an iterative framework by incorporating multi-view graph embedding into the multi-view clustering task on graph instances, jointly performing multi-view clustering and multi-view graph embedding simultaneously. The multi-view clustering results are used for refining the multi-view graph embedding, and the updated multi-view graph embedding results further improve the multi-view clustering. Extensive experiments on two real brain network datasets (i.e., HIV and Bipolar) demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed MCGE approach in multi-view connectome analysis for clinical investigation and application. Guixiang Ma, Lifang He 0001, Chun-Ta Lu, Weixiang Shao, Philip S. Yu, Alex D. Leow, Ann B. Ragin |
CIKM | 6 |
| 2017 | DeepMood: Modeling Mobile Phone Typing Dynamics for Mood DetectionabstractThe increasing use of electronic forms of communication presents new opportunities in the study of mental health, including the ability to investigate the manifestations of psychiatric diseases unobtrusively and in the setting of patients' daily lives. A pilot study to explore the possible connections between bipolar affective disorder and mobile phone usage was conducted. In this study, participants were provided a mobile phone to use as their primary phone. This phone was loaded with a custom keyboard that collected metadata consisting of keypress entry time and accelerometer movement. Individual character data with the exceptions of the backspace key and space bar were not collected due to privacy concerns. We propose an end-to-end deep architecture based on late fusion, named DeepMood, to model the multi-view metadata for the prediction of mood scores. Experimental results show that 90.31% prediction accuracy on the depression score can be achieved based on session-level mobile phone typing dynamics which is typically less than one minute. It demonstrates the feasibility of using mobile phone metadata to infer mood disturbance and severity. Bokai Cao, Lei Zheng 0001, Philip S. Yu, Andrea Piscitello, John Zulueta, Olusola Ajilore, Kelly Ryan, Alex D. Leow |
KDD | 9 |
| 2017 | A Traffic Analysis Perspective on Communication in the BrainabstractIn this short paper, we report on an approach to datamine the brain from a novel perspective, namely traffic analysis. Our data mining approach considers the brain regions and the tracts that connect them as a road network, and the signals traveling between them as vehicles. We analyze travel patterns by a process called traffic assignment. The results are unexpected in the sense that the movement of signals in the brain seems to follow some global optimization patterns as opposed to the anarchical system that would be favored by evolution. Ouri Wolfson, Piotr Szczurek, Aishwarya Vijayan, Alex D. Leow, Olusola Ajilore |
MDM | 4 |
| 2017 | Sequential Keystroke Behavioral Biometrics for Mobile User Identification via Multi-view Deep Learning
Lichao Sun 0001, Bokai Cao, Philip S. Yu, Witawas Srisa-an, Alex D. Leow |
ECML/PKDD (3) | 6 |
| 2017 | t-BNE: Tensor-based Brain Network EmbeddingabstractBrain network embedding is the process of converting brain network data to discriminative representations of subjects, so that patients with brain disorders and normal controls can be easily separated. Computer-aided diagnosis based on such representations is potentially transformative for investigating disease mechanisms and for informing therapeutic interventions. However, existing methods either limit themselves to extracting graph-theoretical measures and subgraph patterns, or fail to incorporate brain network properties and domain knowledge in medical science. In this paper, we propose t-BNE, a novel Brain Network Embedding model based on constrained tensor factorization. t-BNE incorporates 1) symmetric property of brain networks, 2) side information guidance to obtain representations consistent with auxiliary measures, 3) orthogonal constraint to make the latent factors distinct with each other, and 4) classifier learning procedure to introduce supervision from labeled data. The Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) framework is utilized to solve the optimization objective. We evaluate t-BNE on three EEG brain network datasets. Experimental results illustrate the superior performance of the proposed model on graph classification tasks with significant improvement 20.51%, 6.38% and 12.85%, respectively. Furthermore, the derived factors are visualized which could be informative for investigating disease mechanisms under different emotion regulation tasks. Bokai Cao, Lifang He 0001, Xiaokai Wei, Mengqi Xing, Philip S. Yu, Heide Klumpp, Alex D. Leow |
SDM | 7 |
| 2016 | Semi-supervised Tensor Factorization for Brain Network Analysis
Bokai Cao, Chun-Ta Lu, Xiaokai Wei, Philip S. Yu, Alex D. Leow |
ECML/PKDD (1) | 5 |
| 2013 | Multi-resolutional Brain Network Filtering and Analysis via Wavelets on Non-Euclidean Space
Won Hwa Kim, Nagesh Adluru, Moo K. Chung, Sylvia Charchut, Johnson J. GadElkarim, Lori L. Altshuler, Teena Moody, Anand R. Kumar, Alex D. Leow |
MICCAI (3) | 10 |
| 2012 | A Framework for Quantifying Node-Level Community Structure Group Differences in Brain Connectivity Networks
Johnson J. GadElkarim, Dan Schonfeld, Olusola Ajilore, Liang Zhan, Aifeng Zhang, Jamie Feusner, Paul M. Thompson, Tony J. Simon, Anand R. Kumar, Alex D. Leow |
MICCAI (2) | 10 |
| 2012 | Hierarchical Structural Mapping for Globally Optimized Estimation of Functional Networks
Alex D. Leow, Liang Zhan, Donatello Arienzo, Johnson J. GadElkarim, Aifeng Zhang, Olusola Ajilore, Anand R. Kumar, Paul M. Thompson, Jamie Feusner |
MICCAI (2) | 1 |
| 2009 | A Novel Measure of Fractional Anisotropy Based on the Tensor Distribution Function
Liang Zhan, Alex D. Leow, Siwei Zhu, Marina Barysheva, Arthur W. Toga, Katie L. McMahon, Greig I. de Zubicaray, Margaret J. Wright, Paul M. Thompson |
MICCAI (1) | 2 |
| 2009 | Comparing registration methods for mapping brain change using tensor-based morphometry
Igor Yanovsky, Alex D. Leow, Suh Lee, Stanley J. Osher, Paul M. Thompson |
Medical Image Anal. | 2 |
| 2008 | Probabilistic multi-tensor estimation using the Tensor Distribution FunctionabstractDiffusion weighted magnetic resonance (MR) imaging is a powerful tool that can be employed to study white matter microstructure by examining the 3D displacement profile of water molecules in brain tissue. By applying diffusion-sensitized gradients along a minimum of 6 directions, second-order tensors can be computed to model dominant diffusion processes. However, conventional DTI is not sufficient to resolve crossing fiber tracts. A number of high-angular resolution schemes with greater than 6 gradient directions have been employed to address this issue. In this paper, we introduce the tensor distribution function (TDF), a probability function defined on the space of symmetric positive definite matrices. Here, fiber crossing is modeled as an ensemble of Gaussian diffusion processes with weights specified by the TDF once this optimal TDF is determined, the diffusion orientation distribution function (ODF) can easily be computed by analytic integration of the resulting displacement probability function. Alex D. Leow, Siwei Zhu, Katie L. McMahon, Greig I. de Zubicaray, Matthew Meredith, Margaret J. Wright, Paul M. Thompson |
CVPR | 1 |
| 2008 | Fluid Registration of Diffusion Tensor Images Using Information TheoryabstractWe apply an information-theoretic cost metric, the symmetrized Kullback-Leibler (sKL) divergence, or J-divergence, to fluid registration of diffusion tensor images. The difference between diffusion tensors is quantified based on the sKL-divergence of their associated probability density functions (PDFs). Three-dimensional DTI data from 34 subjects were fluidly registered to an optimized target image. To allow large image deformations but preserve image topology, we regularized the flow with a large-deformation diffeomorphic mapping based on the kinematics of a Navier-Stokes fluid. A driving force was developed to minimize the J-divergence between the deforming source and target diffusion functions, while reorienting the flowing tensors to preserve fiber topography. In initial experiments, we showed that the sKL-divergence based on full diffusion PDFs is adaptable to higher-order diffusion models, such as high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI). The sKL-divergence was sensitive to subtle differences between two diffusivity profiles, showing promise for nonlinear registration applications and multisubject statistical analysis of HARDI data. Ming-Chang Chiang, Alex D. Leow, Andrea D. Klunder, Rebecca A. Dutton, Marina Barysheva, Stephen E. Rose, Katie L. McMahon, Greig I. de Zubicaray, Arthur W. Toga, Paul M. Thompson |
IEEE Trans. Medical Imaging | 2 |
| 2007 | Topology Preserving Log-Unbiased Nonlinear Image Registration: Theory and ImplementationabstractIn this paper, we present a novel framework for constructing large deformation log-unbiased image registration models that generate theoretically and intuitively correct deformation maps. Such registration models do not rely on regridding and are inherently topology preserving. We apply information theory to quantify the magnitude of deformations and examine the statistical distributions of Jacobian maps in the logarithmic space. To demonstrate the power of the proposed framework, we generalize the well known viscous fluid registration model to compute log-unbiased deformations. We tested the proposed method using a pair of binary corpus callosum images, a pair of two-dimensional serial MRI images, and a set of three-dimensional serial MRI brain images. We compared our results to those computed using the viscous fluid registration method, and demonstrated that the proposed method is advantageous when recovering voxel-wise maps of local tissue change. Igor Yanovsky, Paul M. Thompson, Stanley J. Osher, Alex D. Leow |
CVPR | 4 |
| 2007 | Multiphase Segmentation of Deformation using Logarithmic PriorsabstractIn [8], the authors proposed the large deformation log-unbiased diffeomorphic nonlinear image registration model which has been successfully used to obtain theoretically and intuitively correct deformation maps. In this paper, we extend this idea to simultaneously registering and tracking deforming objects in a sequence of two or more images. We generalize a level set based Chan-Vese multiphase segmentation model to consider Jacobian fields while segmenting regions of growth and shrinkage in deformations. Deforming objects are thus classified based on magnitude of homogeneous deformation. Numerical experiments demonstrating our results include a pair of two-dimensional synthetic images and pairs of two-dimensional and three-dimensional serial MRI images. Igor Yanovsky, Paul M. Thompson, Stanley J. Osher, Luminita A. Vese, Alex D. Leow |
CVPR | 5 |
| 2007 | Statistical Properties of Jacobian Maps and the Realization of Unbiased Large-Deformation Nonlinear Image RegistrationabstractMaps of local tissue compression or expansion are often computed by comparing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans using nonlinear image registration. The resulting changes are commonly analyzed using tensor-based morphometry to make inferences about anatomical differences, often based on the Jacobian map, which estimates local tissue gain or loss. Here, we provide rigorous mathematical analyses of the Jacobian maps, and use themto motivate a new numerical method to construct unbiased nonlinear image registration. First, we argue that logarithmic transformation is crucial for analyzing Jacobian values representing morphometric differences. We then examine the statistical distributions of log-Jacobian maps by defining the Kullback-Leibler (KL) distance on material density functions arising in continuum-mechanical models. With this framework, unbiased image registration can be constructed by quantifying the symmetric KL-distance between the identity map and the resulting deformation. Implementation details, addressing the proposed unbiased registration as well as the minimization of symmetric image matching functionals, are then discussed and shown to be applicable to other registration methods, such as inverse consistent registration. In the results section, we test the proposed framework, as well as present an illustrative application mapping detailed 3-D brain changes in sequential magnetic resonance imaging scans of a patient diagnosed with semantic dementia. Using permutation tests, we show that the symmetrization of image registration statistically reduces skewness in the log-Jacobian map. Alex D. Leow, Igor Yanovsky, Ming-Chang Chiang, Agatha D. Lee, Andrea D. Klunder, Allen Lu, James T. Becker, Simon W. Davis, Arthur W. Toga, Paul M. Thompson |
IEEE Trans. Medical Imaging | 1 |