Stereotactic Atlas of the Human Thalamus and Basal Ganglia

A mean three-dimensional atlas of the human thalamus: Generation from multiple histological data

“…In addition to the three constituting the first Morel atlas (Morel et al, 1997), a coronal and a sagittal stack of sections from the left and the right hemispheres of the same brain with an intercommissural distance of 26mm, which have been introduced in the second Morel atlas (Morel, 2007), and an additional horizontal stack of sections of a brain with an intercommissural distance of 25mm were used. Postmortem MRIs are available for three of the stacks (Morel, 2007). Thalamic and basal ganglia subdivisions have been delimited on the basis of multiple histological criteria provided by staining of sections for Nissl, myelin, calcium-binding proteins, the non-phosphorylated neurofilament protein (with SMI-32) and acetylcholinesterase.…”

“…The original, paper-based atlases (Schaltenbrand and Wahren, 1977;Morel et al, 1997;Mai et al, 2004;Morel, 2007) are limited by their presentation as stacks of two-dimensional images. Therefore, several electronic, three-dimensional digitalizations have been built (St-Jean et al, 1998;Niemann et al, 2000).…”

“…This way the model is based on several specimens instead of a single one. To this end, we used series of maps of the human thalamus (Morel et al, 1997;Morel, 2007) for the following advantages over other commonly used atlases (Schaltenbrand and Wahren, 1977;Mai et al, 2004). Firstly, the structures of interest (thalamus, basal ganglia, subthalamic fiber tracts) are displayed in three planes orthogonal to each other and oriented parallel or perpendicular to the reference stereotactic plane passing through the centers of the anterior and posterior commissures (ac-pc).…”

A model for simulation and patient-specific visualization of the tissue volume of influence during brain microdialysis

“…The outline of the TVI max for each catheter was superimposed onto the preoperative intensity images. Anatomical structures as extracted from the Morel and Schaltenbrandt brain atlases [25,26] were traced onto the images.…”

“…In Figure 5a, three-dimensional images are used to provide a spatial overview of the TVI max in relation to patient anatomy. In Figure 5b, axial MRI slices are shown, including outlines of the modelled TVI max and the extracted brain atlas contours [25,26]. The upper limit of the 95% prediction interval for the r TVImax for each catheter, according to Equation (3), has been added.…”