FreeSurfer

Last updated
FreeSurfer
Developer Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging
Stable release
8.1.0
Repository
Operating system Linux or Mac OS X
Type Neuroimaging data analysis
License FreeSurfer Software License [1]
Website FreeSurfer
A screen capture of the FreeView application included in FreeSurfer. FreeviewScreenshot.png
A screen capture of the FreeView application included in FreeSurfer.

FreeSurfer is brain imaging software originally developed by Bruce Fischl, Anders Dale, Martin Sereno, and Doug Greve. [2] Development and maintenance of FreeSurfer is now the primary responsibility of the Laboratory for Computational Neuroimaging [3] at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. FreeSurfer contains a set of programs with a common focus of analyzing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of brain tissue. It is an important tool in functional brain mapping and contains tools to conduct both volume based and surface based analysis. [4] FreeSurfer includes tools for the reconstruction of topologically correct and geometrically accurate models of both the gray/white and pial surfaces, for measuring cortical thickness, surface area and folding, and for computing inter-subject registration based on the pattern of cortical folds.

Contents

57,541 copies of the FreeSurfer software package have been registered for use as of April 2022 [5] and it is a core tool in the processing pipelines of the Human Connectome Project, [6] the UK Biobank, [7] the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, [8] and the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. [9]

FreeSurfer morphs cortical surfaces onto spheres to aide in inter-subject comparisons. Spherical Registration.png
FreeSurfer morphs cortical surfaces onto spheres to aide in inter-subject comparisons.

Usage

The FreeSurfer processing stream is controlled by a shell script called recon-all. [10] The script calls component programs that organize raw MRI images into formats easily usable for morphometric and statistical analysis. FreeSurfer automatically segments the volume and parcellates the surface into standardized regions of interest (ROIs). Freesurfer uses a morphed spherical method to average across subjects for statistical (general linear model) analysis with the mri_glmfit [11] tool. FreeSurfer contains a range of packages allowing a broad spectrum of uses, including:

Interoperation

FreeSurfer interoperates easily with the FMRIB Software Library (FSL), a comprehensive library for image analysis written by the Functional MRI of the Brain (FMRIB) group at Oxford, UK. The functional activation results obtained using either the FreeSurfer Functional Analysis Stream (FS-FAST) or the FSL tools can be overlaid onto inflated, sphered or flattened cortical surfaces using FreeSurfer. Data from Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) can be integrated into FreeSurfer data sets through tools included in the FreeSurfer package. [18] FreeSurfer also uses toolkits from MNI MINC, VXL, Tcl/Tk/Tix/BLT, VTK., KWWidgets and Qt, [19] which are all available with the distribution. Other neuroimaging programs like Caret, AFNI/SUMA, MNE, and 3D Slicer can also import data processed by FreeSurfer.

Download

FreeSurfer runs on Mac OS and Linux. Free registration and binary installation are available without a cost, but a license key (text file) is necessary to run the FreeSurfer binaries. [20] Documentation can be found on the FreeSurfer Wiki [21] and limited support is available from the developers and community through the FreeSurfer mailing list.

Selected references

The following is a sample of references the FreeSurfer team recommends researchers cite when publishing findings obtained through FreeSurfer. [22] Citation counts have been obtained through Google Scholar as of August 2019.

TitleYearCitations
Cortical surface-based analysis. I. Segmentation and surface reconstruction. [23] 19996469
Cortical surface-based analysis. II: Inflation, flattening, and a surface-based coordinate system. [24] 19994507
High-resolution intersubject averaging and a coordinate system for the cortical surface. [25] 19992339
Measuring the thickness of the human cerebral cortex from magnetic resonance images. [26] 20003863
Automated manifold surgery: constructing geometrically accurate and topologically correct models of the human cerebral cortex. [27] 20011258
Whole brain segmentation: automated labeling of neuroanatomical structures in the human brain. [28] 20025066
A hybrid approach to the skull stripping problem in MRI. [29] 20041584
Automatically parcellating the human cerebral cortex. [30] 20042731
An automated labeling system for subdividing the human cerebral cortex on MRI scans into gyral based regions of interest. [31] 20064932

See also

References

  1. ↑ FreeSurfer Software License page
  2. ↑ Fischl, Bruce (15 August 2012). "FreeSurfer". NeuroImage. 62 (2): 774–781. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.01.021. ISSN   1053-8119. PMC   3685476 . PMID   22248573.
  3. ↑ "Laboratory for Computational Neuroimaging | MGH/HST Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging".
  4. ↑ Dale, Anders M.; Fischl, Bruce; Serenob, Martin I. (February 1999). "Cortical Surface-Based Analysis: I. Segmentation and Surface Reconstruction" (PDF). NeuroImage. 9 (2): 179–194. doi:10.1006/nimg.1998.0395. PMID   9931268. S2CID   2807360 . Retrieved 29 August 2018.
  5. ↑ FreeSurfer stats from the official FreeSurfer wiki
  6. ↑ Glasser, Matthew F.; Sotiropoulos, Stamatios N; Wilson, J Anthony; Coalson, Timothy S; Fischl, Bruce; Andersson, Jesper L; Xu, Junqian; Jbabdi, Saad; Webster, Matthew; Polimeni, Jonathan R; Van Essen, David C; Jenkinson, Mark (15 October 2013). "The Minimal Preprocessing Pipelines for the Human Connectome Project". NeuroImage. 80: 105–124. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.04.127. ISSN   1053-8119. PMC   3720813 . PMID   23668970.
  7. ↑ Smith, Stephen M.; Miller, Karla L.; Matthews, Paul M.; Dragonu, Iulius; Zhang, Hui; Alexander, Daniel C.; Daducci, Alessandro; Rorden, Christopher; McCarthy, Paul; Webster, Matthew; Vidaurre, Diego; Vallee, Emmanuel; Hernandez-Fernandez, Moises; Jbabdi, Saad; Sotiropoulos, Stamatios N.; Douaud, Gwenaëlle; Griffanti, Ludovica; Andersson, Jesper L. R.; Bangerter, Neal K.; Jenkinson, Mark; Alfaro-Almagro, Fidel (24 April 2017). "Image Processing and Quality Control for the first 10,000 Brain Imaging Datasets from UK Biobank". bioRxiv 130385. doi: 10.1101/130385 . hdl: 11343/256303 .
  8. ↑ Dale, Anders M.; Jernigan, Terry L.; Brown, Sandra A.; Dowling, Gayathri J.; Grant, Steven J.; Constable, R. Todd; Baskin-Sommers, Arielle; Madden, Pamela A.; Heath, Andrew C.; Glaser, Paul; Anokhin, Andrey P.; Steinberg, Joel; Hettema, John M.; Fuemmeler, Bernard; Charness, Michael E.; Lisdahl, Krista; Larson, Christine; Florsheim, Paul; Potter, Alexandra; Ivanova, Masha; Dumas, Julie A.; Allgaier, Nicholas A.; Yurgelun-Todd, Deborah A.; Renshaw, Perry F.; Prescot, Andrew; McGlade, Erin; Huber, Rebekah; Mason, Michael J.; Mruzek, Daniel W.; et al. (4 November 2018). "Image processing and analysis methods for the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study". bioRxiv. 202 457739. doi: 10.1101/457739 . PMC   6981278 . PMID   31415884.
  9. ↑ "ADNI | MRI Tool".
  10. ↑ recon-all script usage
  11. ↑ "FsTutorial/GroupAnalysisV6.0 – Free Surfer Wiki". surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  12. ↑ "FreeviewGuide/FreeviewIntroduction – Free Surfer Wiki". surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  13. ↑ "Tracula – Free Surfer Wiki". surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  14. ↑ "FsFastTutorialV6.0 – Free Surfer Wiki". surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  15. ↑ "Xhemi – Free Surfer Wiki".
  16. ↑ "LGI – Free Surfer Wiki".
  17. ↑ "LinearMixedEffectsModels – Free Surfer Wiki".
  18. ↑ "SPM – Free Surfer Wiki". surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu. 15 August 2012.
  19. ↑ Developer's Guide
  20. ↑ Archived 2014-11-23 at the Wayback Machine Download notes
  21. ↑ FreeSurfer Wiki
  22. ↑ "FreeSurferMethodsCitation – Free Surfer Wiki".
  23. ↑ Dale, A. M.; Fischl, B.; Sereno, M. I. (February 1999). "Cortical surface-based analysis. I. Segmentation and surface reconstruction". NeuroImage. 9 (2): 179–194. doi:10.1006/nimg.1998.0395. ISSN   1053-8119. PMID   9931268. S2CID   2807360.
  24. ↑ Fischl, B.; Sereno, M. I.; Dale, A. M. (February 1999). "Cortical surface-based analysis. II: Inflation, flattening, and a surface-based coordinate system". NeuroImage. 9 (2): 195–207. doi:10.1006/nimg.1998.0396. ISSN   1053-8119. PMID   9931269. S2CID   3100335.
  25. ↑ Fischl, Bruce; Sereno, Martin I.; Tootell, Roger B. H.; Dale, Anders M. (1999). "High-resolution intersubject averaging and a coordinate system for the cortical surface". Human Brain Mapping. 8 (4): 272–284. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-0193(1999)8:4<272::AID-HBM10>3.0.CO;2-4. ISSN   1097-0193. PMC   6873338 . PMID   10619420.
  26. ↑ Fischl, B.; Dale, A. M. (2000-09-26). "Measuring the thickness of the human cerebral cortex from magnetic resonance images". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 97 (20): 11050–11055. Bibcode:2000PNAS...9711050F. doi: 10.1073/pnas.200033797 . ISSN   0027-8424. PMC   27146 . PMID   10984517.
  27. ↑ Fischl, B.; Liu, A.; Dale, A. M. (January 2001). "Automated manifold surgery: constructing geometrically accurate and topologically correct models of the human cerebral cortex". IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging. 20 (1): 70–80. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.3.8686 . doi:10.1109/42.906426. ISSN   0278-0062. PMID   11293693. S2CID   954064.
  28. ↑ Fischl, Bruce; Salat, David H.; Busa, Evelina; Albert, Marilyn; Dieterich, Megan; Haselgrove, Christian; van der Kouwe, Andre; Killiany, Ron; Kennedy, David (2002-01-31). "Whole brain segmentation: automated labeling of neuroanatomical structures in the human brain". Neuron. 33 (3): 341–355. doi: 10.1016/s0896-6273(02)00569-x . ISSN   0896-6273. PMID   11832223. S2CID   9629554.
  29. ↑ Ségonne, F.; Dale, A. M.; Busa, E.; Glessner, M.; Salat, D.; Hahn, H. K.; Fischl, B. (July 2004). "A hybrid approach to the skull stripping problem in MRI". NeuroImage. 22 (3): 1060–1075. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.123.7627 . doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.03.032. ISSN   1053-8119. PMID   15219578. S2CID   54432685.
  30. ↑ Fischl, Bruce; van der Kouwe, André; Destrieux, Christophe; Halgren, Eric; Ségonne, Florent; Salat, David H.; Busa, Evelina; Seidman, Larry J.; Goldstein, Jill (January 2004). "Automatically parcellating the human cerebral cortex". Cerebral Cortex. 14 (1): 11–22. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhg087 . ISSN   1047-3211. PMID   14654453.
  31. ↑ Desikan, Rahul S.; Ségonne, Florent; Fischl, Bruce; Quinn, Brian T.; Dickerson, Bradford C.; Blacker, Deborah; Buckner, Randy L.; Dale, Anders M.; Maguire, R. Paul (2006-07-01). "An automated labeling system for subdividing the human cerebral cortex on MRI scans into gyral based regions of interest". NeuroImage. 31 (3): 968–980. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.01.021. ISSN   1053-8119. PMID   16530430. S2CID   12420386.
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