Abstract: As a new method to map the outer cortex of the human brain, a deformable surface model is described in this paper. Obtaining the shape of the brain is an important step for shape visualization, morphological analysis and registration of brain images.Using the deformable surface algorithm on three dimensional MRimages a parametererization of the central layer of the outer cortex can be obtained. This algorithm combines robustness to noise with flexibility to represent a broad class of shapes.

Key words: deformable surface, cortex, magnetic resonance image