Temporal epilepsy lesions may be detected by the voxel-based quantitative analysis of brain FDG-PET images using an original block-matching normalization software

Introduction Statistical parametric mapping (SPM) provides useful voxel-by-voxel analyses of brain images from 18F-fluorodesoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) after an initial step of spatial normalization through an anatomical template model. In the setting of the preoperative workup of patients with temporal epilepsy, this study aimed at assessing a block-matching (BM) normalization method, where most transformations are computed through small blocks, a principle that minimizes artefacts and overcomes additional image-filtering.