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Background and Purpose: Spatial registration is crucial in establishing correspondence between anatomic brain regions for research and clinical purposes. The insular cortex (IC) and gyri (IG) are implicated in various functions and pathologies including epilepsy. Optimizing registration of the insula to a common atlas can improve the accuracy of group-level analyses. Here, we compared six nonlinear, one linear, and one semiautomated registration algorithms (RAs) for registering the IC and IG to the Montreal Neurologic Institute standard space (MNI152)., Methods: 3T images acquired from 20 controls and 20 temporal lobe epilepsy patients with mesial temporal sclerosis underwent automated segmentation of the insula. This was followed by manual segmentation of the entire IC and six individual IGs. Consensus segmentations were created at 75% agreement for IC and IG before undergoing registration to MNI152 space with eight RAs. Dice similarity coefficients (DSCs) were calculated between segmentations after registration and the IC and IG in MNI152 space. Statistical analysis involved the Kruskal-Wallace test with Dunn's test for IC and two-way analysis of variance with Tukey's honest significant difference test for IG., Results: DSCs were significantly different between RAs. Based on multiple pairwise comparisons, we report that certain RAs performed better than others across population groups. Additionally, registration performance differed according to specific IG., Conclusion: We compared different methods for registering the IC and IG to MNI152 space. We found differences in performance between RAs, which suggests that algorithm choice is important factor in analyses involving the insula., (© 2023 American Society of Neuroimaging.)

There is a considerable number of patients with epilepsy that have drug resistant epilepsy (DRE). An additional option for these patients is resective surgery of ictal onset zones. However, a significant portion of DRE patients have unidentified or unresectable ictal zones. For these patients, RNS is a potential treatment option. The RNS system is a closed loop system that delivers stimulation in response to ECoG changes at seizure foci. It is programmed with an algorithm capable of detecting specific patterns of epileptogenic activity and triggers focal stimulation to interrupt seizures. The long term monitoring potential of the RNS system allows for a better understanding of the circadian rhythms behind epilepsy., Competing Interests: None