Arytenoid Cartilage Feature Point Detection Using Laryngeal 3D CT Images in Parkinson's Disease

Abstract

Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that results in progressive degeneration of nerve cells. It is generally associated with the deficiency of dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved in motor control of humans and thus affects the motor system. This results in abnormal vocal fold movements in majority of the Parkinson's patients. Analysis of vocal fold abnormalities may provide useful information to assess the progress of Parkinson's disease. This is accomplished by measuring the distance between the arytenoid cartilages during phonation. In order to automate this process of identifying arytenoid cartilages from CT images, in this work, a rule-based approach is proposed to dete..