ENCODINGNEUROANATOMICAL INFORMATIONUSING WEIGHTED SPHERICALHARMONIC REPRESENTATION

Cortical surfaces canbemodeled using therecently developed weighed spherical harmonic (SPHARM)representation. The weighted-SPHARM representation incorporates data smoothing, parametrization andsurface registration inaunified mathematical framework. Theweighted-SPHARM represents the surface coordinates asaweighted linear combination ofspherical harmonics insuchawaythat itsolves aheatequation. Therepresentation candecomposes anarbitrary surface into symmetric andasymmetric parts with respect tomirror reflection. Byanalyzing this unique decomposition, surface asymmetrycanbequantified. We haveapplied ourtechnique in quantifying abnormal brain asymmetry inautistic subjects.