Three-dimensional reconstruction of metabolic data from quantitative autoradiography of rat brain.

Quantitative autoradiography is a powerful method for studying brain function by the determination of blood flow, glucose utilization, or transport of essential nutrients. Autoradiographic images contain vast amounts of potentially useful information, but conventional analyses can practically sample the data at only a small number of points arbitrarily chosen by the experimenter to represent discrete brain structures. To use image data more fully, computer methods for its acquisition, storage, quantitative analysis, and display are required. We have developed a system of computer programs that performs these tasks and has the following features: 1) editing and analysis of single images using interactive graphics, 2) an automatic image alignment algorithm that places images in register with one another using only the mathematical properties of the images themselves, 3) the calculation of mean images from equivalent images in different experimental serial image sets, 4) the calculation of difference images (e.g., experiment-minus-control) with the option to display only differences estimated to be statistically significant, and 5) the display of serial image metabolic maps reconstructed in three dimensions using a high-speed computer graphics system.