ABLE

ABLE extracts sulcal fundi and gyral crown lines from cortical surface reconstructions to enable precise neuroanatomical segmentation and analysis of cortical folding.

Key Features:

• Laplacian Surface Collapse Methodology: Uses a Laplacian-collapse-based algorithm to produce thinned representations of cortical surfaces for accurate line extraction.
• Integration with FreeSurfer outputs: Accepts standard FreeSurfer outputs as input to operate within existing cortical reconstruction workflows.
• Focus on Topological Features: Targets sulcal fundi and gyral crown lines while minimizing representation of anastomotic sulci to preserve primary folding topology.
• Spatial Filtering and Surface Erosion: Segments cortex into gyral and sulcal surfaces, applies spatial filtering and surface thinning for endpoint detection, and performs surface erosion to connect endpoints while maintaining line integrity.

Scientific Applications:

• Cortical morphology analysis: Provides precise extraction of sulcal fundi and gyral crowns for studies of cortical folding patterns and morphology.
• Structure–function and pathology studies: Facilitates investigation of relationships between cortical topology and cognitive processes or brain pathology.
• Validation and reproducibility assessment: Validated by comparative analysis with three other sulcal extraction methods using the Human Connectome Project (HCP) test-retest database.

Methodology:

Accepts FreeSurfer outputs; segments cortex into gyral and sulcal surfaces; applies spatial filtering; performs Laplacian-collapse-based surface thinning for endpoint detection; applies surface erosion to connect endpoints while preserving sulcal fundi and gyral crown lines.