We present a set of multiscale frame-based kernels that can be used to construct diffeomorphic transformation in the large deformation diffeomorphic metric mapping (LDDMM) framework. We construct multiscale kernels via compact wavelet frames that are equipped with the hierarchical multiresolution analysis. We show that these kernels under certain conditions can form reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces of smooth velocity fields and hence can be used to generate multiscale diffeomorphic transformation for LDDMM. As a proof of concept, we incorporate these kernels in the LDDMM framework. We show the improvement of whole brain mapping accuracy using the LDDMM with frame-based kernels in comparison to that obtained using the LDDMM with Gaussian kernels. Moreover, we evaluate whole brain mapping accuracy of the LDDMM with frame-based kernels against that obtained from the 14 brain mapping methods given by Klein et al.. Our results suggest that the LDDMM with frame-based kernels has the potential to outperform the 14 brain mapping methods for whole brain mapping.

Brain surface registration is an important tool for characterizing cortical anatomical variations and understanding their roles in normal cortical development and psychiatric diseases. However, surface registration remains challenging due to complicated cortical anatomy and its large differences across individuals. In this paper, we propose a fast coarse-to-fine algorithm for surface registration by adapting the large diffeomorphic deformation metric mapping (LDDMM) framework for surface mapping and show improvements in speed and accuracy via a multiresolution analysis of surface meshes and the construction of multiresolution diffeomorphic transformations. The proposed method constructs a family of multiresolution meshes that are used as natural sparse priors of the cortical morphology. At varying resolutions, these meshes act as anchor points where the parameterization of multiresolution deformation vector fields can be supported, allowing the construction of a bundle of multiresolution deformation fields, each originating from a different resolution. Using a coarse-to-fine approach, we show a potential reduction in computation cost along with improvements in sulcal alignment when compared with LDDMM surface mapping.

The spectral graph wavelet transform (SGWT) has recently been developed to compute wavelet transforms of functions defined on non-Euclidean spaces such as graphs. By capitalizing on the established framework of the SGWT, we adopt a fast and efficient computation of a discretized Laplace-Beltrami (LB) operator that allows its extension from arbitrary graphs to differentiable and closed 2-D manifolds (smooth surfaces embedded in the 3-D Euclidean space). This particular class of manifolds are widely used in bioimaging to characterize the morphology of cells, tissues, and organs. They are often discretized into triangular meshes, providing additional geometric information apart from simple nodes and weighted connections in graphs. In comparison with the SGWT, the wavelet bases constructed with the LB operator are spatially localized with a more uniform "spread" with respect to underlying curvature of the surface. In our experiments, we first use synthetic data to show that traditional applications of wavelets in smoothing and edge detectio can be done using the wavelet bases constructed with the LB operator. Second, we show that multi-resolutional capabilities of the proposed framework are applicable in the classification of Alzheimer's patients with normal subjects using hippocampal shapes. Wavelet transforms of the hippocampal shape deformations at finer resolutions registered higher sensitivity (96%) and specificity (90%) than the classification results obtained from the direct usage of hippocampal shape deformations. In addition, the Laplace-Beltrami method requires consistently a smaller number of principal components (to retain a fixed variance) at higher resolution as compared to the binary and weighted graph Laplacians, demonstrating the potential of the wavelet bases in adapting to the geometry of the underlying manifold.