Structural analysis of micro-channels in human temporal bone

Recently, numerous micro-channels have been discovered in the human temporal bone by micro-CT-scanning. Preliminary structure of these channels has suggested they contain a new separate blood supply for the mucosa of the mastoid air cells, which may have important functional implications. This paper proposes a structural analysis of the microchannels to corroborate this role. A local structure tensor is first estimated. The eigenvalues obtained from the estimated local structure tensor were then used to build probability maps representing planar, tubular, and isotropic tensor types. Each tensor type was assigned a respective RGB color and the full structure tensor was rendered along with the original data. Such structural analysis provides new and relevant information about the micro-channels but also their connections to mastoid air cells. Before carrying a future statistical analysis, a more accurate representation of the micro-channels in terms of local structure tensor analysis using adaptive filtering is needed.