Spatio-temporal registration in multiplane MRI acquisitions for 3D colon motiliy analysis

In this paper we present a novel method for analyzing and visualizing dynamic peristaltic motion of the colon in 3D from two series of differently oriented 2D MRI images. To this end, we have defined an MRI examination protocol, and introduced methods for spatio-temporal alignment of the two MRI image series into a common reference. This represents the main contribution of this paper, which enables the 3D analysis of peristaltic motion. The objective. is to provide a detailed insight into this complex motion, aiding in the diagnosis and characterization of colon motion. disorders. We have applied the proposed spatio-temporal method on Cine MRI data sets of healthy volunteers. The results have been inspected and validated by an expert radiologist. Segmentation and cylindrical approximation of the colon results in a 4D visualization of the peristaltic motion.