Three-dimensional stereotactic atlas of the extracranial vasculature correlated with the intracranial vasculature, cranial nerves, skull and muscles

Abstract

Our objective was to construct a 3D, interactive, and reference atlas of the extracranial vasculature spatially correlated with the intracranial blood vessels, cranial nerves, skull, glands, and head muscles.The atlas has been constructed from multiple 3T and 7T magnetic resonance angiogram (MRA) brain scans, and 3T phase contrast and inflow MRA neck scans of the same specimen in the following steps: vessel extraction from the scans, building 3D tubular models of the vessels, spatial registration of the extra- and intracranial vessels, vessel editing, vessel naming and color-coding, vessel simplification, and atlas validation.This new atlas contains 48 names of the extracranial vessels (25 arterial and 23 venous) and it has been integrated with the existing brain atlas.The atlas is valuable for medical students and residents to easily get familiarized with the extracranial vasculature with a few clicks; is useful for educators to prepare teaching materials; and potentially can serve as a reference in the diagnosis of vascular disease and treatment, including craniomaxillofacial surgeries and radiologic interventions of the face and neck.

Toward the holistic, reference, and extendable atlas of the human brain, head, and neck

“…The 3D atlas of neurologic disorders [ 37 ] can easily be extended by adding many more synthesized lesions and linking them with clinical cases. This may expand the applicability of the atlas to become an aid for neurological diagnosis and pathology localization, particularly, in the radiology deprived regions, where diagnostic imaging is neither available nor affordable…”

“…Our endeavor shifts the brain atlas development paradigm FROM fragmented studies and mosaic content, “copy and paste” neuroanatomy, static presentation, and tedious neurological description TO holistic representation, truly 3D structural, vascular, connectional and functional neuroanatomy, dynamic brain de/composition (from blocks to brain), dysfunction brain atlases, and brain at work. Several atlases have been created within this family (an atlas of cerebral vasculature [ 29 ] as well as the human brain in 1492 [ 30 , 31 ] (two editions), 1969 [ 32 , 33 ] (2 editions) along with mobile versions on iPad [ 34 ] and Android-based [ 35 ], and 2953 [ 36 ] pieces along with the 3D atlas of neurologic disorder (on desktop [ 37 ] and iPad [ 38 ])), and they excellently illustrate our strategy and paradigm shift.…”

“…The labels can be placed permanently and manipulated in 3D. In general, a vector of items can be provided, such as literature materials or references, like in [ 29 , 37 ] atlases. When querying the index about structure location, the structure (or a group of structures) is (are) highlighted in the 3D view.…”

A 3D stereotactic atlas of the adult human skull base

“…These models have been built earlier from in vivo multiple 3 and 7 Tesla (T) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and high-resolution computed tomography (CT) scans of the same normal, male head specimen. The models have been incorporated into the 3D stereotactic atlases of the skull [ 17 ], brain [ 18 ], cranial nerves [ 19 ], intracranial vasculature [ 20 ], and extracranial vasculature [ 21 ].…”

“…The extracranial vasculature was created in a similar way from the same MRA scans as the intracranial vasculature and additionally from a 3D phase contrast MRA neck scan with a 352 × 352 × 261 matrix and a 0.568182 × 0.568182 × 1.0 mm 3 voxel size [ 21 ].…”