Estimation and Perturbation of the Mid-Sagittal Plane and its Effects on Corpus Callosum Morphometry

Brain morphometry is an important tool for detecting and monitoring brain pathologies such as epilepsy, dementia [1,2] and multiple sclerosis [3]. A common method is to delineate some well-defined area of the brain to yield a shape for interor intra-subject studies. One such structure is the corpus callosum (CC), the white-matter nervous tissue bridging the left and right cerebral hemisphere. A multitude of papers (e.g. [2]) report on measurements performed on the two-dimensional cross-section of the CC defined by the mid-sagittal plane (MSP) which separates the left hemisphere from the right. Differences in shape due to pathologies are often slight (e.g. [1]). This makes it imperative to define the MSP in an accurate and consistent manner. This work investigates the importance of proper MSP estimation by measuring relative area changes of the CC as a function of plane perturbation angle from an estimated optimal MSP.