CAT – A Computational Anatomy Toolbox for the Analysis of Structural MRI Data

Abstract

AbstractA large range of sophisticated brain image analysis tools have been developed by the neuroscience community, greatly advancing the field of human brain mapping. Here we introduce the Computational Anatomy Toolbox (CAT) - a powerful suite of tools for morphometric analyses with an intuitive graphical user interface, but also usable as a shell script. CAT is suitable for beginners, casual users, experts, and developers alike providing a comprehensive set of analysis options, workflows, and integrated pipelines. The available analysis streams – illustrated on an example dataset – allow for voxel-based, surface-based, as well as region-based morphometric analyses. Importantly, CAT includes various quality control options and covers the entire analysis workflow, from cross-sectional or longitudinal data processing, to the statistical analysis, and visualization of results. The overarching aim of this article is to provide a complete description of CAT, while, at the same time, offering a citable standard reference.