Abstract
We present a novel method of statistical surface-based morphometry based on the use of non-parametric permutation tests and a spherical wavelet (SWC) shape representation. As an application, we analyze two brain structures, the caudate nucleus and the hippocampus, and compare the results obtained to shape analysis using a sampled point representation. Our results show that the SWC representation indicates new areas of significance preserved under the FDR correction for both the left caudate nucleus and left hippocampus. Additionally, the spherical wavelet representation provides a natural way to interpret the significance results in terms of scale in addition to knowing the spatial location of the regions.