IE-Map: A novel in-vivo atlas template of the human inner ear

Abstract

AbstractBrain atlases and templates are core tools in scientific research with increasing importance also in clinical applications. Advances in neuroimaging now allowed us to expand the atlas domain to the vestibular and auditory organ, the inner ear. In this study, we present IE-Map, an in-vivo template and atlas of all known substructures of the human labyrinth derived from multi-modal high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging data in a non-invasive manner (no contrast agent or radiation). We reconstructed a common template from 126 inner ears (63 normal subjects) and annotated it with 94 established landmarks and semi-automatic segmentations. Quantitative substructure analysis revealed a correlation of labyrinth parameters with total intracranial volume. No effects of gender or laterality were found. We provide the validated templates, atlas segmentations, surface meshes and landmark annotations as open-access material, to provide neuroscience researchers and clinicians in neurology, neurosurgery, and otorhinolaryngology with a widely applicable tool for computational neurootology.