Abstract:

One of the most important roles of a brain atlas is providing a spatial reference system in which multiple images can be interpreted in a consistent way. The brain atlase based on Western populations such as the International Consortium for Brain Mapping’s 452 T-1 Weighted Average Atlas was widely used; however, they may not be the optimal choice for use with brain images from other ethnic groups, because structural differences between occidental and oriental brains have been reported. Therefore, in this study, we created an average brain atlas from 100 healthy Koreans (100 cases (M/F=53/47), 39.0 ± 17.0 years). The purpose of this study was to make a Korean average-brain atlas and to measure its differences from a widely accepted average brain atlas built on an occidental population. The average brain atlas for Koreans was developed using widely accepted tools and procedures. The comparison between the Korean and occidental averages was performed using tissue probability maps and a registration tool, and it was shown that the global pattern of differences between the two average brains found in this work agreed with previously reported differences: Korean brains are wider and shorter in size, and smaller in volume, yet no hemispheric volume asymmetry was found.