Longitudinal changes in volume and surface deformations for the Thalamus. While the volumetric measurement remains almost stable over time, the Thalamus deformations are able to capture early longitudinal changes in local atrophy.
A Statistical ROI (StatROI) measure of surface deformation in the Thalamus was defined by averaging deformation maps over the spatial set of statistically significant clusters detected at 48 months in the PD group. As opposed to the volume measure, this surface StatROI deformation measure showed a consistent decrease over time for the PD group.