This Team is trying to use the computer program to process a variety of brain images for the sake of (semi-) automatic sub-structure extraction, measurement and quantitative statistical analysis, and thus to incubate a computer aided detection and diagnosis (CAD2) system concentrating on the brain disease and the corresponding change of the sub-structures, which should be promising for guiding the study how the brain works.

Some preliminary research results shows that the alienation or missing of the consciousness or the functions in the brain have corresponding morphologic changes in the brain images. For an instance, the changes of the shape or the volume of the hippocampus could affect the memory function; Some relationships between the diseases and the changes of sub-structures doesn't arrive at a final validation yet, such as the relationship between the losing of the language ability and the changes of the gray matter in the cerebral cortical, or between the intelligence quotient (IQ) and the complexity or the thickness of the cerebral cortical. Therefore, the study for the morphologic changes of the sub-structures inside the brain could give birth to a powerful assistant for the research how the brain works, and form an objective and reliable CAD2 system.

Currently our lab has achieved some promising progress on the extractions and descriptions of some sub-structures of the brain, including the extraction and measurement of the shape and volume for the hippocampus, the tracking and the classification for the white matter fiber, and the definition and measurement of the thickness and the complexity of the cerebral cortical. We will combine the research results from the functional images of the brain, to validate the objectivity and rationality of the above physical description and functional analysis, and extend the research to other critical sub-structures inside the brains and its influences to the brain functions. The destination of our research is to set up a complete (semi-) automatic computer aided detection and diagnosis system for our brain.