Morphometry Stats

Gray Matter and White Matter Volume

Estimation of the gray matter and white matter volumes is calculated from the surfaces and not from the aseg labels.
It is worth noting that in cases where the data is of very poor quality and surfaces cannot be reconstructed, but the aseg is fairly accurate, then gm and wm volume can be taken from the aseg (this will require an extra flag to get these values in the stats files instead of the surface-based values).

Surface-based volume is calculated as:

Volume = Surface Area x Thickness

Surface-based measures of cortical gray matter and white matter volume can be found in the header of the aseg.stats file. Below, the names of these measures are listed along with how they are defined:


lhCortex & rhCortex -> per hemi gray matter volume based on the pial surface


Cortex -> total gray matter volume (lh + rh) based on the pial surface


lhCorticalWhiteMatter & rhCorticalWhiteMatter -> per hemi white matter volume based on the white surface


CorticalWhiteMatter -> total white matter volume (lh + rh) based on the white surface

Additional Calculated Volumes

In the aseg.stats header, you will also find the following volumes:


SubCortGray -> volume-based measure of subcortical gray matter based on the labeled structures in the aseg.mgz


TotalGray -> Cortex + SubCortGray


SupraTentorial -> Cortex + CorticalWhiteMatter + SubCortGray (essentially, everything above the tentorium within the pial surface plus the subcortical volumes)


IntraCranialVol -> estimated Total Intracranial vol (eTIV)

Subcortical Volumes

The volume for all the subcortical structures segmented by the aseg.mgz can also be found in the aseg.stats file. For each structure, you will find the number of voxels, mean intensity across the structure, the standard deviation, Min, Max and Range of the intensity across the structure. The structures that are segmented are:

Left-Lateral-Ventricle
Left-Inf-Lat-Vent
Left-Cerebellum-White-Matter
Left-Cerebellum-Cortex
Left-Thalamus-Proper
Left-Caudate
Left-Putamen
Left-Pallidum
3rd-Ventricle
4th-Ventricle
Brain-Stem
Left-Hippocampus
Left-Amygdala
CSF
Left-Accumbens-area
Left-VentralDC
Left-vessel
Left-choroid-plexus
Right-Lateral-Ventricle
Right-Inf-Lat-Vent
Right-Cerebellum-White-Matter
Right-Cerebellum-Cortex
Right-Thalamus-Proper
Right-Caudate
Right-Putamen
Right-Pallidum
Right-Hippocampus
Right-Amygdala
Right-Accumbens-area
Right-VentralDC
Right-vessel
Right-choroid-plexus
5th-Ventricle
WM-hypointensities
Left-WM-hypointensities
Right-WM-hypointensities
non-WM-hypointensities
Left-non-WM-hypointensities
Right-non-WM-hypointensities
Optic-Chiasm
CC_Posterior
CC_Mid_Posterior
CC_Central
CC_Mid_Anterior
CC_Anterior