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Kamagata K, Andica C, Uchida W, Takabayashi K, Saito Y, Lukies M, Hagiwara A, Fujita S, Akashi T, Wada A, Hori M, Kamiya K, Zalesky A, Aoki S. Advancements in Diffusion MRI Tractography for Neurosurgery. Invest Radiol 2024; 59:13-25. [PMID: 37707839 DOI: 10.1097/rli.0000000000001015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/15/2023]
Abstract
ABSTRACT Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging tractography is a noninvasive technique that enables the visualization and quantification of white matter tracts within the brain. It is extensively used in preoperative planning for brain tumors, epilepsy, and functional neurosurgical procedures such as deep brain stimulation. Over the past 25 years, significant advancements have been made in imaging acquisition, fiber direction estimation, and tracking methods, resulting in considerable improvements in tractography accuracy. The technique enables the mapping of functionally critical pathways around surgical sites to avoid permanent functional disability. When the limitations are adequately acknowledged and considered, tractography can serve as a valuable tool to safeguard critical white matter tracts and provides insight regarding changes in normal white matter and structural connectivity of the whole brain beyond local lesions. In functional neurosurgical procedures such as deep brain stimulation, it plays a significant role in optimizing stimulation sites and parameters to maximize therapeutic efficacy and can be used as a direct target for therapy. These insights can aid in patient risk stratification and prognosis. This article aims to discuss state-of-the-art tractography methodologies and their applications in preoperative planning and highlight the challenges and new prospects for the use of tractography in daily clinical practice.
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Affiliation(s)
- Koji Kamagata
- From the Department of Radiology, Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan (K.K., C.A., W.U., K.T., Y.S., A.H., S.F., T.A., A.W., S.A.); Faculty of Health Data Science, Juntendo University, Chiba, Japan (C.A., S.A.); Department of Radiology, Alfred Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (M.L.); Department of Radiology, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan (S.F.); Department of Radiology, Toho University Omori Medical Center, Tokyo, Japan (M.H., K.K.); Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Center, Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, Parkville, Victoria, Australia (A.Z.); and Melbourne School of Engineering, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (A.Z.)
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He J, Zhang F, Pan Y, Feng Y, Rushmore J, Torio E, Rathi Y, Makris N, Kikinis R, Golby AJ, O'Donnell LJ. Reconstructing the somatotopic organization of the corticospinal tract remains a challenge for modern tractography methods. Hum Brain Mapp 2023; 44:6055-6073. [PMID: 37792280 PMCID: PMC10619402 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.26497] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/07/2023] [Revised: 09/09/2023] [Accepted: 09/13/2023] [Indexed: 10/05/2023] Open
Abstract
The corticospinal tract (CST) is a critically important white matter fiber tract in the human brain that enables control of voluntary movements of the body. The CST exhibits a somatotopic organization, which means that the motor neurons that control specific body parts are arranged in order within the CST. Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tractography is increasingly used to study the anatomy of the CST. However, despite many advances in tractography algorithms over the past decade, modern, state-of-the-art methods still face challenges. In this study, we compare the performance of six widely used tractography methods for reconstructing the CST and its somatotopic organization. These methods include constrained spherical deconvolution (CSD) based probabilistic (iFOD1) and deterministic (SD-Stream) methods, unscented Kalman filter (UKF) tractography methods including multi-fiber (UKF2T) and single-fiber (UKF1T) models, the generalized q-sampling imaging (GQI) based deterministic tractography method, and the TractSeg method. We investigate CST somatotopy by dividing the CST into four subdivisions per hemisphere that originate in the leg, trunk, hand, and face areas of the primary motor cortex. A quantitative and visual comparison is performed using diffusion MRI data (N = 100 subjects) from the Human Connectome Project. Quantitative evaluations include the reconstruction rate of the eight anatomical subdivisions, the percentage of streamlines in each subdivision, and the coverage of the white matter-gray matter (WM-GM) interface. CST somatotopy is further evaluated by comparing the percentage of streamlines in each subdivision to the cortical volumes for the leg, trunk, hand, and face areas. Overall, UKF2T has the highest reconstruction rate and cortical coverage. It is the only method with a significant positive correlation between the percentage of streamlines in each subdivision and the volume of the corresponding motor cortex. However, our experimental results show that all compared tractography methods are biased toward generating many trunk streamlines (ranging from 35.10% to 71.66% of total streamlines across methods). Furthermore, the coverage of the WM-GM interface in the largest motor area (face) is generally low (under 40%) for all compared tractography methods. Different tractography methods give conflicting results regarding the percentage of streamlines in each subdivision and the volume of the corresponding motor cortex, indicating that there is generally no clear relationship, and that reconstruction of CST somatotopy is still a large challenge. Overall, we conclude that while current tractography methods have made progress toward the well-known challenge of improving the reconstruction of the lateral projections of the CST, the overall problem of performing a comprehensive CST reconstruction, including clinically important projections in the lateral (hand and face areas) and medial portions (leg area), remains an important challenge for diffusion MRI tractography.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jianzhong He
- Institution of Information Processing and AutomationZhejiang University of TechnologyHangzhouChina
| | - Fan Zhang
- Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's HospitalHarvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
- University of Electronic Science and Technology of ChinaChengduSichuanChina
| | - Yiang Pan
- Institution of Information Processing and AutomationZhejiang University of TechnologyHangzhouChina
| | - Yuanjing Feng
- Institution of Information Processing and AutomationZhejiang University of TechnologyHangzhouChina
| | - Jarrett Rushmore
- Departments of Psychiatry, Neurology and RadiologyMassachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
- Department of Anatomy and NeurobiologyBoston University School of MedicineBostonMassachusettsUSA
| | - Erickson Torio
- Department of NeurosurgeryBrigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
| | - Yogesh Rathi
- Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's HospitalHarvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
- Department of PsychiatryBrigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
| | - Nikos Makris
- Departments of Psychiatry, Neurology and RadiologyMassachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
- Department of PsychiatryBrigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
| | - Ron Kikinis
- Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's HospitalHarvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
| | - Alexandra J. Golby
- Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's HospitalHarvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
- Department of NeurosurgeryBrigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
| | - Lauren J. O'Donnell
- Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's HospitalHarvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
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Howell AM, Warrington S, Fonteneau C, Cho YT, Sotiropoulos SN, Murray JD, Anticevic A. The spatial extent of anatomical connections within the thalamus varies across the cortical hierarchy in humans and macaques. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.07.22.550168. [PMID: 37546767 PMCID: PMC10401924 DOI: 10.1101/2023.07.22.550168] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/08/2023]
Abstract
Each cortical area has a distinct pattern of anatomical connections within the thalamus, a central subcortical structure composed of functionally and structurally distinct nuclei. Previous studies have suggested that certain cortical areas may have more extensive anatomical connections that target multiple thalamic nuclei, which potentially allows them to modulate distributed information flow. However, there is a lack of quantitative investigations into anatomical connectivity patterns within the thalamus. Consequently, it remains unknown if cortical areas exhibit systematic differences in the extent of their anatomical connections within the thalamus. To address this knowledge gap, we used diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) to perform brain-wide probabilistic tractography for 828 healthy adults from the Human Connectome Project. We then developed a framework to quantify the spatial extent of each cortical area's anatomical connections within the thalamus. Additionally, we leveraged resting-state functional MRI, cortical myelin, and human neural gene expression data to test if the extent of anatomical connections within the thalamus varied along the cortical hierarchy. Our results revealed two distinct corticothalamic tractography motifs: 1) a sensorimotor cortical motif characterized by focal thalamic connections targeting posterolateral thalamus, associated with fast, feed-forward information flow; and 2) an associative cortical motif characterized by diffuse thalamic connections targeting anteromedial thalamus, associated with slow, feed-back information flow. These findings were consistent across human subjects and were also observed in macaques, indicating cross-species generalizability. Overall, our study demonstrates that sensorimotor and association cortical areas exhibit differences in the spatial extent of their anatomical connections within the thalamus, which may support functionally-distinct cortico-thalamic information flow.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amber M Howell
- Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
- Division of Neurocognition, Neurocomputation, & Neurogenetics (N3), Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, 06511, USA
- Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 06511, USA
| | - Shaun Warrington
- Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
| | - Clara Fonteneau
- Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
- Division of Neurocognition, Neurocomputation, & Neurogenetics (N3), Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, 06511, USA
| | - Youngsun T Cho
- Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
- Division of Neurocognition, Neurocomputation, & Neurogenetics (N3), Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, 06511, USA
| | - Stamatios N Sotiropoulos
- Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre, Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham, UK
| | - John D Murray
- Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
- Division of Neurocognition, Neurocomputation, & Neurogenetics (N3), Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, 06511, USA
- Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 06511, USA
- Physics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 06511, USA
| | - Alan Anticevic
- Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
- Division of Neurocognition, Neurocomputation, & Neurogenetics (N3), Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, 06511, USA
- Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 06511, USA
- Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 06511, USA
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Sundaresan V, Lehman JF, Maffei C, Haber SN, Yendiki A. Self-supervised segmentation and characterization of fiber bundles in anatomic tracing data. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.09.30.560310. [PMID: 37873366 PMCID: PMC10592842 DOI: 10.1101/2023.09.30.560310] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2023]
Abstract
Anatomic tracing is the gold standard tool for delineating brain connections and for validating more recently developed imaging approaches such as diffusion MRI tractography. A key step in the analysis of data from tracer experiments is the careful, manual charting of fiber trajectories on histological sections. This is a very time-consuming process, which limits the amount of annotated tracer data that are available for validation studies. Thus, there is a need to accelerate this process by developing a method for computer-assisted segmentation. Such a method must be robust to the common artifacts in tracer data, including variations in the intensity of stained axons and background, as well as spatial distortions introduced by sectioning and mounting the tissue. The method should also achieve satisfactory performance using limited manually charted data for training. Here we propose the first deeplearning method, with a self-supervised loss function, for segmentation of fiber bundles on histological sections from macaque brains that have received tracer injections. We address the limited availability of manual labels with a semi-supervised training technique that takes advantage of unlabeled data to improve performance. We also introduce anatomic and across-section continuity constraints to improve accuracy. We show that our method can be trained on manually charted sections from a single case and segment unseen sections from different cases, with a true positive rate of ~0.80. We further demonstrate the utility of our method by quantifying the density of fiber bundles as they travel through different white-matter pathways. We show that fiber bundles originating in the same injection site have different levels of density when they travel through different pathways, a finding that can have implications for microstructure-informed tractography methods. The code for our method is available at https://github.com/v-sundaresan/fiberbundle_seg_tracing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vaanathi Sundaresan
- Department of Computational and Data Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560012, India
| | - Julia F. Lehman
- Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, University of Rochester School of Medicine, Rochester, NY, United States
| | - Chiara Maffei
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, United States
| | - Suzanne N. Haber
- Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, University of Rochester School of Medicine, Rochester, NY, United States
- McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, United States
| | - Anastasia Yendiki
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, United States
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5
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Girard G, Rafael-Patiño J, Truffet R, Aydogan DB, Adluru N, Nair VA, Prabhakaran V, Bendlin BB, Alexander AL, Bosticardo S, Gabusi I, Ocampo-Pineda M, Battocchio M, Piskorova Z, Bontempi P, Schiavi S, Daducci A, Stafiej A, Ciupek D, Bogusz F, Pieciak T, Frigo M, Sedlar S, Deslauriers-Gauthier S, Kojčić I, Zucchelli M, Laghrissi H, Ji Y, Deriche R, Schilling KG, Landman BA, Cacciola A, Basile GA, Bertino S, Newlin N, Kanakaraj P, Rheault F, Filipiak P, Shepherd TM, Lin YC, Placantonakis DG, Boada FE, Baete SH, Hernández-Gutiérrez E, Ramírez-Manzanares A, Coronado-Leija R, Stack-Sánchez P, Concha L, Descoteaux M, Mansour L S, Seguin C, Zalesky A, Marshall K, Canales-Rodríguez EJ, Wu Y, Ahmad S, Yap PT, Théberge A, Gagnon F, Massi F, Fischi-Gomez E, Gardier R, Haro JLV, Pizzolato M, Caruyer E, Thiran JP. Tractography passes the test: Results from the diffusion-simulated connectivity (disco) challenge. Neuroimage 2023; 277:120231. [PMID: 37330025 PMCID: PMC10771037 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120231] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2023] [Revised: 05/12/2023] [Accepted: 06/14/2023] [Indexed: 06/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Estimating structural connectivity from diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging is a challenging task, partly due to the presence of false-positive connections and the misestimation of connection weights. Building on previous efforts, the MICCAI-CDMRI Diffusion-Simulated Connectivity (DiSCo) challenge was carried out to evaluate state-of-the-art connectivity methods using novel large-scale numerical phantoms. The diffusion signal for the phantoms was obtained from Monte Carlo simulations. The results of the challenge suggest that methods selected by the 14 teams participating in the challenge can provide high correlations between estimated and ground-truth connectivity weights, in complex numerical environments. Additionally, the methods used by the participating teams were able to accurately identify the binary connectivity of the numerical dataset. However, specific false positive and false negative connections were consistently estimated across all methods. Although the challenge dataset doesn't capture the complexity of a real brain, it provided unique data with known macrostructure and microstructure ground-truth properties to facilitate the development of connectivity estimation methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabriel Girard
- CIBM Center for Biomedical Imaging, Switzerland; Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
| | - Jonathan Rafael-Patiño
- Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
| | - Raphaël Truffet
- Univ Rennes, Inria, CNRS, Inserm, IRISA UMR 6074, Empenn ERL U-1228, Rennes, France
| | - Dogu Baran Aydogan
- A.I. Virtanen Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland; Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland; Department of Psychiatry, Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Nagesh Adluru
- Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States; Department of Radiology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States
| | - Veena A Nair
- Department of Radiology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States
| | - Vivek Prabhakaran
- Department of Radiology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States
| | - Barbara B Bendlin
- Department of Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States
| | - Andrew L Alexander
- Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States; Department of Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States; Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States
| | - Sara Bosticardo
- Diffusion Imaging and Connectivity Estimation (DICE) Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy; Translational Imaging in Neurology (ThINk), Department of Biomedical Engineering, University Hospital Basel and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Ilaria Gabusi
- Diffusion Imaging and Connectivity Estimation (DICE) Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy; Department of Advanced Biomedical Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy
| | - Mario Ocampo-Pineda
- Diffusion Imaging and Connectivity Estimation (DICE) Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
| | - Matteo Battocchio
- Diffusion Imaging and Connectivity Estimation (DICE) Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy; Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Laboratory (SCIL), Department of Computer Science, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
| | - Zuzana Piskorova
- Diffusion Imaging and Connectivity Estimation (DICE) Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy; Brno Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication, Department of mathematics, University of Technology, Brno, Czech Republic
| | - Pietro Bontempi
- Diffusion Imaging and Connectivity Estimation (DICE) Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
| | - Simona Schiavi
- Department of Neuroscience, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics, Maternal and Child Health (DINOGMI), University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy
| | - Alessandro Daducci
- Diffusion Imaging and Connectivity Estimation (DICE) Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
| | | | - Dominika Ciupek
- Sano Centre for Computational Personalised Medicine, Kraków, Poland
| | - Fabian Bogusz
- AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland
| | - Tomasz Pieciak
- AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland; Laboratorio de Procesado de Imagen (LPI), ETSI Telecomunicación, Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain
| | - Matteo Frigo
- Athena Project Team, Centre Inria d'Université Côte d'Azur, France
| | - Sara Sedlar
- Athena Project Team, Centre Inria d'Université Côte d'Azur, France
| | | | - Ivana Kojčić
- Athena Project Team, Centre Inria d'Université Côte d'Azur, France
| | - Mauro Zucchelli
- Athena Project Team, Centre Inria d'Université Côte d'Azur, France
| | - Hiba Laghrissi
- Athena Project Team, Centre Inria d'Université Côte d'Azur, France; Institut de Biologie de Valrose, Université Côte d'Azur, Nice, France
| | - Yang Ji
- Athena Project Team, Centre Inria d'Université Côte d'Azur, France
| | - Rachid Deriche
- Athena Project Team, Centre Inria d'Université Côte d'Azur, France
| | - Kurt G Schilling
- Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States
| | - Bennett A Landman
- Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States; Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
| | - Alberto Cacciola
- Brain Mapping Lab, Department of Biomedical, Dental Sciences and Morphological and Functional Images, University of Messina, Messina, Italy; Center for Complex Network Intelligence (CCNI), Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence (THBI), Tsinghua University, Beijing, China; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
| | - Gianpaolo Antonio Basile
- Brain Mapping Lab, Department of Biomedical, Dental Sciences and Morphological and Functional Images, University of Messina, Messina, Italy
| | - Salvatore Bertino
- Brain Mapping Lab, Department of Biomedical, Dental Sciences and Morphological and Functional Images, University of Messina, Messina, Italy
| | - Nancy Newlin
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
| | - Praitayini Kanakaraj
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
| | - Francois Rheault
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
| | - Patryk Filipiak
- Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research (CAI2R), Department of Radiology, NYU Langone Health, New York, NY, United States
| | - Timothy M Shepherd
- Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research (CAI2R), Department of Radiology, NYU Langone Health, New York, NY, United States
| | - Ying-Chia Lin
- Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research (CAI2R), Department of Radiology, NYU Langone Health, New York, NY, United States
| | - Dimitris G Placantonakis
- Department of Neurosurgery, Perlmutter Cancer Center, Neuroscience Institute, Kimmel Center for Stem Cell Biology, NYU Langone Health, New York, NY, United States
| | - Fernando E Boada
- Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States
| | - Steven H Baete
- Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research (CAI2R), Department of Radiology, NYU Langone Health, New York, NY, United States
| | - Erick Hernández-Gutiérrez
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Laboratory (SCIL), Department of Computer Science, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
| | | | - Ricardo Coronado-Leija
- Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research (CAI2R), Department of Radiology, NYU Langone Health, New York, NY, United States
| | - Pablo Stack-Sánchez
- Computer Science Department, Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas A.C, Guanajuato, México
| | - Luis Concha
- Instituto de Neurobiología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Juriquilla, Querétaro, México
| | - Maxime Descoteaux
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Laboratory (SCIL), Department of Computer Science, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
| | - Sina Mansour L
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia; Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
| | - Caio Seguin
- Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, Parkville, Victoria, Australia; School of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia; Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, United States
| | - Andrew Zalesky
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia; Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
| | - Kenji Marshall
- Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland; McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada
| | - Erick J Canales-Rodríguez
- Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Ye Wu
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Research Imaging Center (BRIC), The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States; School of Computer Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China
| | - Sahar Ahmad
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Research Imaging Center (BRIC), The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
| | - Pew-Thian Yap
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Research Imaging Center (BRIC), The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
| | - Antoine Théberge
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Laboratory (SCIL), Department of Computer Science, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
| | - Florence Gagnon
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Laboratory (SCIL), Department of Computer Science, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
| | - Frédéric Massi
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Laboratory (SCIL), Department of Computer Science, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
| | - Elda Fischi-Gomez
- CIBM Center for Biomedical Imaging, Switzerland; Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Rémy Gardier
- Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Juan Luis Villarreal Haro
- Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Marco Pizzolato
- Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland; Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Emmanuel Caruyer
- Univ Rennes, Inria, CNRS, Inserm, IRISA UMR 6074, Empenn ERL U-1228, Rennes, France
| | - Jean-Philippe Thiran
- CIBM Center for Biomedical Imaging, Switzerland; Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
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6
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Menzel M, Gräßel D, Rajkovic I, Zeineh MM, Georgiadis M. Using light and X-ray scattering to untangle complex neuronal orientations and validate diffusion MRI. eLife 2023; 12:e84024. [PMID: 37166005 PMCID: PMC10259419 DOI: 10.7554/elife.84024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/07/2022] [Accepted: 05/02/2023] [Indexed: 05/12/2023] Open
Abstract
Disentangling human brain connectivity requires an accurate description of nerve fiber trajectories, unveiled via detailed mapping of axonal orientations. However, this is challenging because axons can cross one another on a micrometer scale. Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) can be used to infer axonal connectivity because it is sensitive to axonal alignment, but it has limited spatial resolution and specificity. Scattered light imaging (SLI) and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) reveal axonal orientations with microscopic resolution and high specificity, respectively. Here, we apply both scattering techniques on the same samples and cross-validate them, laying the groundwork for ground-truth axonal orientation imaging and validating dMRI. We evaluate brain regions that include unidirectional and crossing fibers in human and vervet monkey brain sections. SLI and SAXS quantitatively agree regarding in-plane fiber orientations including crossings, while dMRI agrees in the majority of voxels with small discrepancies. We further use SAXS and dMRI to confirm theoretical predictions regarding SLI determination of through-plane fiber orientations. Scattered light and X-ray imaging can provide quantitative micrometer 3D fiber orientations with high resolution and specificity, facilitating detailed investigations of complex fiber architecture in the animal and human brain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Miriam Menzel
- Department of Imaging Physics, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Delft University of TechnologyDelftNetherlands
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbHJülichGermany
| | - David Gräßel
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbHJülichGermany
| | - Ivan Rajkovic
- Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator LaboratoryStandfordUnited States
| | - Michael M Zeineh
- Department of Radiology, Stanford School of MedicineStanfordUnited States
| | - Marios Georgiadis
- Department of Radiology, Stanford School of MedicineStanfordUnited States
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7
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In vivo probabilistic atlas of white matter tracts of the human subthalamic area combining track density imaging and optimized diffusion tractography. Brain Struct Funct 2022; 227:2647-2665. [PMID: 36114861 PMCID: PMC9618529 DOI: 10.1007/s00429-022-02561-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/06/2022] [Accepted: 08/29/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
The human subthalamic area is a region of high anatomical complexity, tightly packed with tiny fiber bundles. Some of them, including the pallidothalamic, cerebello-thalamic, and mammillothalamic tracts, are relevant targets in functional neurosurgery for various brain diseases. Diffusion-weighted imaging-based tractography has been suggested as a useful tool to map white matter pathways in the human brain in vivo and non-invasively, though the reconstruction of these specific fiber bundles is challenging due to their small dimensions and complex anatomy. To the best of our knowledge, a population-based, in vivo probabilistic atlas of subthalamic white matter tracts is still missing. In the present work, we devised an optimized tractography protocol for reproducible reconstruction of the tracts of subthalamic area in a large data sample from the Human Connectome Project repository. First, we leveraged the super-resolution properties and high anatomical detail provided by short tracks track-density imaging (stTDI) to identify the white matter bundles of the subthalamic area on a group-level template. Tracts identification on the stTDI template was also aided by visualization of histological sections of human specimens. Then, we employed this anatomical information to drive tractography at the subject-level, optimizing tracking parameters to maximize between-subject and within-subject similarities as well as anatomical accuracy. Finally, we gathered subject level tracts reconstructed with optimized tractography into a large-scale, normative population atlas. We suggest that this atlas could be useful in both clinical anatomy and functional neurosurgery settings, to improve our understanding of the complex morphology of this important brain region.
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8
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Insights from the IronTract challenge: Optimal methods for mapping brain pathways from multi-shell diffusion MRI. Neuroimage 2022; 257:119327. [PMID: 35636227 PMCID: PMC9453851 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119327] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/11/2022] [Revised: 05/06/2022] [Accepted: 05/19/2022] [Indexed: 01/25/2023] Open
Abstract
Limitations in the accuracy of brain pathways reconstructed by diffusion MRI (dMRI) tractography have received considerable attention. While the technical advances spearheaded by the Human Connectome Project (HCP) led to significant improvements in dMRI data quality, it remains unclear how these data should be analyzed to maximize tractography accuracy. Over a period of two years, we have engaged the dMRI community in the IronTract Challenge, which aims to answer this question by leveraging a unique dataset. Macaque brains that have received both tracer injections and ex vivo dMRI at high spatial and angular resolution allow a comprehensive, quantitative assessment of tractography accuracy on state-of-the-art dMRI acquisition schemes. We find that, when analysis methods are carefully optimized, the HCP scheme can achieve similar accuracy as a more time-consuming, Cartesian-grid scheme. Importantly, we show that simple pre- and post-processing strategies can improve the accuracy and robustness of many tractography methods. Finally, we find that fiber configurations that go beyond crossing (e.g., fanning, branching) are the most challenging for tractography. The IronTract Challenge remains open and we hope that it can serve as a valuable validation tool for both users and developers of dMRI analysis methods.
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9
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Yendiki A, Aggarwal M, Axer M, Howard AF, van Cappellen van Walsum AM, Haber SN. Post mortem mapping of connectional anatomy for the validation of diffusion MRI. Neuroimage 2022; 256:119146. [PMID: 35346838 PMCID: PMC9832921 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119146] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 17.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/16/2021] [Revised: 03/02/2022] [Accepted: 03/23/2022] [Indexed: 01/13/2023] Open
Abstract
Diffusion MRI (dMRI) is a unique tool for the study of brain circuitry, as it allows us to image both the macroscopic trajectories and the microstructural properties of axon bundles in vivo. The Human Connectome Project ushered in an era of impressive advances in dMRI acquisition and analysis. As a result of these efforts, the quality of dMRI data that could be acquired in vivo improved substantially, and large collections of such data became widely available. Despite this progress, the main limitation of dMRI remains: it does not image axons directly, but only provides indirect measurements based on the diffusion of water molecules. Thus, it must be validated by methods that allow direct visualization of axons but that can only be performed in post mortem brain tissue. In this review, we discuss methods for validating the various features of connectional anatomy that are extracted from dMRI, both at the macro-scale (trajectories of axon bundles), and at micro-scale (axonal orientations and other microstructural properties). We present a range of validation tools, including anatomic tracer studies, Klingler's dissection, myelin stains, label-free optical imaging techniques, and others. We provide an overview of the basic principles of each technique, its limitations, and what it has taught us so far about the accuracy of different dMRI acquisition and analysis approaches.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anastasia Yendiki
- Department of Radiology, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, United States,Corresponding author (A. Yendiki)
| | - Manisha Aggarwal
- Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States
| | - Markus Axer
- Forschungszentrum Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Jülich, Germany,Department of Physics, University of Wuppertal Germany
| | - Amy F.D. Howard
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Anne-Marie van Cappellen van Walsum
- Department of Medical Imaging, Anatomy, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherland,Cognition and Behaviour, Donders Institute for Brain, Nijmegen, the Netherland
| | - Suzanne N. Haber
- Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, United States,McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, United States
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10
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Koch PJ, Girard G, Brügger J, Cadic-Melchior AG, Beanato E, Park CH, Morishita T, Wessel MJ, Pizzolato M, Canales-Rodríguez EJ, Fischi-Gomez E, Schiavi S, Daducci A, Piredda GF, Hilbert T, Kober T, Thiran JP, Hummel FC. Evaluating reproducibility and subject-specificity of microstructure-informed connectivity. Neuroimage 2022; 258:119356. [PMID: 35659995 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119356] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/21/2022] [Revised: 05/01/2022] [Accepted: 06/01/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Tractography enables identifying and evaluating the healthy and diseased brain's white matter pathways from diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging data. As previous evaluation studies have reported significant false-positive estimation biases, recent microstructure-informed tractography algorithms have been introduced to improve the trade-off between specificity and sensitivity. However, a major limitation for characterizing the performance of these techniques is the lack of ground truth brain data. In this study, we compared the performance of two relevant microstructure-informed tractography methods, SIFT2 and COMMIT, by assessing the subject specificity and reproducibility of their derived white matter pathways. Specifically, twenty healthy young subjects were scanned at eight different time points at two different sites. Subject specificity and reproducibility were evaluated using the whole-brain connectomes and a subset of 29 white matter bundles. Our results indicate that although the raw tractograms are more vulnerable to the presence of false-positive connections, they are highly reproducible, suggesting that the estimation bias is subject-specific. This high reproducibility was preserved when microstructure-informed tractography algorithms were used to filter the raw tractograms. Moreover, the resulting track-density images depicted a more uniform coverage of streamlines throughout the white matter, suggesting that these techniques could increase the biological meaning of the estimated fascicles. Notably, we observed an increased subject specificity by employing connectivity pre-processing techniques to reduce the underlaying noise and the data dimensionality (using principal component analysis), highlighting the importance of these tools for future studies. Finally, no strong bias from the scanner site or time between measurements was found. The largest intraindividual variance originated from the sole repetition of data measurements (inter-run).
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Affiliation(s)
- Philipp J Koch
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Valais), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation, 1951 Sion, Switzerland; Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, 23562 Lübeck, Germany; Center of Brain, Behavior and Metabolism (CBBM), University of Lübeck, 23562 Lübeck, Germany
| | - Gabriel Girard
- CIBM Center for Biomedical Imaging, Switzerland; Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.
| | - Julia Brügger
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Valais), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation, 1951 Sion, Switzerland
| | - Andéol G Cadic-Melchior
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Valais), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation, 1951 Sion, Switzerland
| | - Elena Beanato
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Valais), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation, 1951 Sion, Switzerland
| | - Chang-Hyun Park
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Valais), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation, 1951 Sion, Switzerland
| | - Takuya Morishita
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Valais), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation, 1951 Sion, Switzerland
| | - Maximilian J Wessel
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Valais), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation, 1951 Sion, Switzerland; Department of Neurology, Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany
| | - Marco Pizzolato
- Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland; Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | | | - Elda Fischi-Gomez
- Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland; Translational Machine Learning Lab, Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Simona Schiavi
- Diffusion Imaging and Connectivity Estimation (DICE) Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy; Department of Neuroscience, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics, Maternal and Child Health (DINOGMI), University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy
| | - Alessandro Daducci
- Diffusion Imaging and Connectivity Estimation (DICE) Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
| | - Gian Franco Piredda
- Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland; Advanced Clinical Imaging Technology, Siemens Healthcare AG, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Tom Hilbert
- Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland; Advanced Clinical Imaging Technology, Siemens Healthcare AG, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Tobias Kober
- Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland; Advanced Clinical Imaging Technology, Siemens Healthcare AG, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Jean-Philippe Thiran
- CIBM Center for Biomedical Imaging, Switzerland; Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland
| | - Friedhelm C Hummel
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Valais), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation, 1951 Sion, Switzerland; Clinical Neuroscience, University Hospital of Geneva (HUG), Geneva, Switzerland
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11
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Moon JY, Mukherjee P, Madduri RK, Markowitz AJ, Cai LT, Palacios EM, Manley GT, Bremer PT. The Case for Optimized Edge-Centric Tractography at Scale. Front Neuroinform 2022; 16:752471. [PMID: 35651721 PMCID: PMC9148990 DOI: 10.3389/fninf.2022.752471] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2021] [Accepted: 04/22/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The anatomic validity of structural connectomes remains a significant uncertainty in neuroimaging. Edge-centric tractography reconstructs streamlines in bundles between each pair of cortical or subcortical regions. Although edge bundles provides a stronger anatomic embedding than traditional connectomes, calculating them for each region-pair requires exponentially greater computation. We observe that major speedup can be achieved by reducing the number of streamlines used by probabilistic tractography algorithms. To ensure this does not degrade connectome quality, we calculate the identifiability of edge-centric connectomes between test and re-test sessions as a proxy for information content. We find that running PROBTRACKX2 with as few as 1 streamline per voxel per region-pair has no significant impact on identifiability. Variation in identifiability caused by streamline count is overshadowed by variation due to subject demographics. This finding even holds true in an entirely different tractography algorithm using MRTrix. Incidentally, we observe that Jaccard similarity is more effective than Pearson correlation in calculating identifiability for our subject population.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joseph Y. Moon
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, United States
- *Correspondence: Joseph Y. Moon
| | - Pratik Mukherjee
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States
- Pratik Mukherjee
| | | | - Amy J. Markowitz
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States
| | - Lanya T. Cai
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States
| | - Eva M. Palacios
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States
| | - Geoffrey T. Manley
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States
| | - Peer-Timo Bremer
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, United States
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12
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Lipp I, Mole JP, Subramanian L, Linden DEJ, Metzler-Baddeley C. Investigating the Anatomy and Microstructure of the Dentato-rubro-thalamic and Subthalamo-ponto-cerebellar Tracts in Parkinson's Disease. Front Neurol 2022; 13:793693. [PMID: 35401393 PMCID: PMC8987292 DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2022.793693] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2021] [Accepted: 02/07/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Cerebellar-thalamic connections play a central role in deep brain stimulation-based treatment of tremor syndromes. Here, we used diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) tractography to delineate the main cerebellar peduncles as well as two main white matter tracts that connect the cerebellum with the thalamus, the dentato-rubro-thalamic tract (DRTT) and the subthalamo-ponto-cerebellar tract (SPCT). We first developed a reconstruction protocol in young healthy adults with high-resolution diffusion imaging data and then demonstrate feasibility of transferring this protocol to clinical studies using standard diffusion MRI data from a cohort of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and their matched healthy controls. The tracts obtained closely corresponded to the previously described anatomical pathways and features of the DRTT and the SPCT. Second, we investigated the microstructure of these tracts with fractional anisotropy (FA), radial diffusivity (RD), and hindrance modulated orientational anisotropy (HMOA) in patients with PD and healthy controls. By reducing dimensionality of both the microstructural metrics and the investigated cerebellar and cerebellar-thalamic tracts using principal component analyses, we found global differences between patients with PD and controls, suggestive of higher fractional anisotropy, lower radial diffusivity, and higher hindrance modulated orientational anisotropy in patients. However, separate analyses for each of the tracts did not yield any significant differences. Our findings contribute to the characterization of the distinct anatomical connections between the cerebellum and the diencephalon. Microstructural differences between patients and controls in the cerebellar pathways suggest involvement of these structures in PD, complementing previous functional and diffusion imaging studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ilona Lipp
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences (DPMCN), School of Medicine, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Department of Neurophysics, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Jilu Princy Mole
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences (DPMCN), School of Medicine, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Department of Neurophysics, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Leena Subramanian
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences (DPMCN), School of Medicine, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
| | - David E. J. Linden
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences (DPMCN), School of Medicine, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- School for Mental Health and Neuroscience, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
| | - Claudia Metzler-Baddeley
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
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13
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Boyne P, DiFrancesco M, Awosika OO, Williamson B, Vannest J. Mapping the human corticoreticular pathway with multimodal delineation of the gigantocellular reticular nucleus and high-resolution diffusion tractography. J Neurol Sci 2022; 434:120091. [PMID: 34979371 PMCID: PMC8957549 DOI: 10.1016/j.jns.2021.120091] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/28/2021] [Revised: 11/17/2021] [Accepted: 12/10/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
The corticoreticular pathway (CRP) is a major motor tract that transmits cortical input to the reticular formation motor nuclei and may be an important mediator of motor recovery after central nervous system damage. However, its cortical origins, trajectory and laterality are incompletely understood in humans. This study aimed to map the human CRP and generate an average CRP template in standard MRI space. Following recently established guidelines, we manually delineated the primary reticular formation motor nucleus (gigantocellular reticular nucleus [GRN]) using several group-mean MRI contrasts from the Human Connectome Project (HCP). CRP tractography was then performed with HCP diffusion-weighted MRI data (N = 1065) by selecting diffusion streamlines that reached both the cortex and GRN. Corticospinal tract (CST) tractography was also performed for comparison. Results suggest that the human CRP has widespread origins, which overlap with the CST across most of the motor cortex and include additional exclusive inputs from the medial and anterior prefrontal cortices. The estimated CRP projected through the anterior and posterior limbs of the internal capsule before partially decussating in the midbrain tegmentum and converging bilaterally on the pontomedullary reticular formation. Thus, the CRP trajectory appears to partially overlap the CST, while being more distributed and anteromedial to the CST in the cerebrum before moving posterior to the CST in the brainstem. These findings have important implications for neurophysiologic testing, cortical stimulation and movement recovery after brain lesions. We expect that our GRN and tract maps will also facilitate future CRP research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pierce Boyne
- Department of Rehabilitation, Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, College of Allied Health Sciences, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45267, USA.
| | - Mark DiFrancesco
- Department of Radiology and Pediatric Neuroimaging Research Consortium, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH 45267, USA
| | - Oluwole O Awosika
- Department of Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45267, USA
| | - Brady Williamson
- Department of Radiology, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45267, USA
| | - Jennifer Vannest
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, College of Allied Health Sciences, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45267, USA
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14
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Schilling KG, Rheault F, Petit L, Hansen CB, Nath V, Yeh FC, Girard G, Barakovic M, Rafael-Patino J, Yu T, Fischi-Gomez E, Pizzolato M, Ocampo-Pineda M, Schiavi S, Canales-Rodríguez EJ, Daducci A, Granziera C, Innocenti G, Thiran JP, Mancini L, Wastling S, Cocozza S, Petracca M, Pontillo G, Mancini M, Vos SB, Vakharia VN, Duncan JS, Melero H, Manzanedo L, Sanz-Morales E, Peña-Melián Á, Calamante F, Attyé A, Cabeen RP, Korobova L, Toga AW, Vijayakumari AA, Parker D, Verma R, Radwan A, Sunaert S, Emsell L, De Luca A, Leemans A, Bajada CJ, Haroon H, Azadbakht H, Chamberland M, Genc S, Tax CMW, Yeh PH, Srikanchana R, Mcknight CD, Yang JYM, Chen J, Kelly CE, Yeh CH, Cochereau J, Maller JJ, Welton T, Almairac F, Seunarine KK, Clark CA, Zhang F, Makris N, Golby A, Rathi Y, O'Donnell LJ, Xia Y, Aydogan DB, Shi Y, Fernandes FG, Raemaekers M, Warrington S, Michielse S, Ramírez-Manzanares A, Concha L, Aranda R, Meraz MR, Lerma-Usabiaga G, Roitman L, Fekonja LS, Calarco N, Joseph M, Nakua H, Voineskos AN, Karan P, Grenier G, Legarreta JH, Adluru N, Nair VA, Prabhakaran V, Alexander AL, Kamagata K, Saito Y, Uchida W, Andica C, Abe M, Bayrak RG, Wheeler-Kingshott CAMG, D'Angelo E, Palesi F, Savini G, Rolandi N, Guevara P, Houenou J, López-López N, Mangin JF, Poupon C, Román C, Vázquez A, Maffei C, Arantes M, Andrade JP, Silva SM, Calhoun VD, Caverzasi E, Sacco S, Lauricella M, Pestilli F, Bullock D, Zhan Y, Brignoni-Perez E, Lebel C, Reynolds JE, Nestrasil I, Labounek R, Lenglet C, Paulson A, Aulicka S, Heilbronner SR, Heuer K, Chandio BQ, Guaje J, Tang W, Garyfallidis E, Raja R, Anderson AW, Landman BA, Descoteaux M. Tractography dissection variability: What happens when 42 groups dissect 14 white matter bundles on the same dataset? Neuroimage 2021; 243:118502. [PMID: 34433094 PMCID: PMC8855321 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118502] [Citation(s) in RCA: 65] [Impact Index Per Article: 21.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/16/2020] [Revised: 08/10/2021] [Accepted: 08/21/2021] [Indexed: 10/20/2022] Open
Abstract
White matter bundle segmentation using diffusion MRI fiber tractography has become the method of choice to identify white matter fiber pathways in vivo in human brains. However, like other analyses of complex data, there is considerable variability in segmentation protocols and techniques. This can result in different reconstructions of the same intended white matter pathways, which directly affects tractography results, quantification, and interpretation. In this study, we aim to evaluate and quantify the variability that arises from different protocols for bundle segmentation. Through an open call to users of fiber tractography, including anatomists, clinicians, and algorithm developers, 42 independent teams were given processed sets of human whole-brain streamlines and asked to segment 14 white matter fascicles on six subjects. In total, we received 57 different bundle segmentation protocols, which enabled detailed volume-based and streamline-based analyses of agreement and disagreement among protocols for each fiber pathway. Results show that even when given the exact same sets of underlying streamlines, the variability across protocols for bundle segmentation is greater than all other sources of variability in the virtual dissection process, including variability within protocols and variability across subjects. In order to foster the use of tractography bundle dissection in routine clinical settings, and as a fundamental analytical tool, future endeavors must aim to resolve and reduce this heterogeneity. Although external validation is needed to verify the anatomical accuracy of bundle dissections, reducing heterogeneity is a step towards reproducible research and may be achieved through the use of standard nomenclature and definitions of white matter bundles and well-chosen constraints and decisions in the dissection process.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kurt G Schilling
- Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States.
| | | | - Laurent Petit
- Groupe dImagerie Neurofonctionnelle, Institut Des Maladies Neurodegeneratives, CNRS, CEA University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France
| | - Colin B Hansen
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
| | - Vishwesh Nath
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
| | - Fang-Cheng Yeh
- Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
| | - Gabriel Girard
- CIBM Center for BioMedical Imaging, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Muhamed Barakovic
- Translational Imaging in Neurology (ThINK), Department of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering, University Hospital and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Jonathan Rafael-Patino
- Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Thomas Yu
- Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Elda Fischi-Gomez
- Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Marco Pizzolato
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
| | | | - Simona Schiavi
- Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Italy
| | | | | | - Cristina Granziera
- Translational Imaging in Neurology (ThINK), Department of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering, University Hospital and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Giorgio Innocenti
- Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Jean-Philippe Thiran
- Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Laura Mancini
- Lysholm Department of Neuroradiology, National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery, UCL Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
| | - Stephen Wastling
- Lysholm Department of Neuroradiology, National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery, UCL Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
| | - Sirio Cocozza
- Department of Advanced Biomedical Sciences, University "Federico II", Naples, Italy
| | - Maria Petracca
- Department of Neurosciences and Reproductive and Odontostomatological Sciences, University "Federico II", Naples, Italy
| | - Giuseppe Pontillo
- Department of Advanced Biomedical Sciences, University "Federico II", Naples, Italy
| | - Matteo Mancini
- Department of Neuroscience, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom
| | - Sjoerd B Vos
- Centre for Medical Image Computing, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Vejay N Vakharia
- Department of Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - John S Duncan
- Epilepsy Society MRI Unit, Chalfont St Peter, United Kingdom
| | - Helena Melero
- Departamento de Psicobiología y Metodología en Ciencias del Comportamiento - Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain Laboratorio de Análisis de Imagen Médica y Biometría (LAIMBIO), Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain
| | - Lidia Manzanedo
- Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain
| | - Emilio Sanz-Morales
- Laboratorio de Análisis de Imagen Médica y Biometría (LAIMBIO), Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain
| | - Ángel Peña-Melián
- Departamento de Anatomía, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Fernando Calamante
- Sydney Imaging and School of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
| | - Arnaud Attyé
- School of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
| | - Ryan P Cabeen
- Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, Keck School of Medicine of USC, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States
| | - Laura Korobova
- Center for Integrative Connectomics, Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, Keck School of Medicine of USC, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States
| | - Arthur W Toga
- Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, Keck School of Medicine of USC, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States
| | | | - Drew Parker
- Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States
| | - Ragini Verma
- Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States
| | - Ahmed Radwan
- KU Leuven, Department of Imaging and Pathology, Translational MRI, B-3000, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Stefan Sunaert
- KU Leuven, Department of Imaging and Pathology, Translational MRI, B-3000, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Louise Emsell
- KU Leuven, Department of Imaging and Pathology, Translational MRI, B-3000, Leuven, Belgium
| | | | | | - Claude J Bajada
- Department of Physiology and Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Malta, Malta
| | - Hamied Haroon
- Division of Neuroscience & Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, The University of Manchester, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, Manchester, United Kingdom
| | | | - Maxime Chamberland
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
| | - Sila Genc
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
| | - Chantal M W Tax
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
| | - Ping-Hong Yeh
- National Intrepid Center of Excellence, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Rujirutana Srikanchana
- National Intrepid Center of Excellence, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Colin D Mcknight
- Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States
| | - Joseph Yuan-Mou Yang
- Department of Neurosurgery, Neuroscience Advanced Clinical Imaging Suite (NACIS), Royal Children's Hospital, Parkville, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Jian Chen
- Developmental Imaging, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Claire E Kelly
- Victorian Infant Brain Studies, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Chun-Hung Yeh
- Institute for Radiological Research, Chang Gung University & Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan
| | | | - Jerome J Maller
- MRI Clinical Science Specialist, General Electric Healthcare, Australia
| | | | - Fabien Almairac
- Neurosurgery department, Hôpital Pasteur, University Hospital of Nice, Côte d'Azur University, France
| | - Kiran K Seunarine
- Developmental Imaging and Biophysics Section, UCL GOS Institute of Child Health, London
| | - Chris A Clark
- Developmental Imaging and Biophysics Section, UCL GOS Institute of Child Health, London
| | - Fan Zhang
- Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Nikos Makris
- Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Alexandra Golby
- Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Yogesh Rathi
- Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Lauren J O'Donnell
- Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Yihao Xia
- University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine, Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, Los Angeles, California, United States
| | - Dogu Baran Aydogan
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University School of Science, Espoo, Finland
| | - Yonggang Shi
- University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine, Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, Los Angeles, California, United States
| | | | - Mathijs Raemaekers
- UMC Utrecht Brain Center, Department of Neurology&Neurosurgery, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Shaun Warrington
- Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, UK
| | - Stijn Michielse
- Department of Neurosurgery, School for Mental Health and Neuroscience, Maastricht University
| | | | - Luis Concha
- Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Institute of Neurobiology, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Ramón Aranda
- Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada (CICESE-UT3), Cátedras-CONACyT, Ensenada, Mexico
| | | | | | - Lucas Roitman
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA
| | - Lucius S Fekonja
- Department of Neurosurgery, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Navona Calarco
- Kimel Family Translational Imaging-Genetics Laboratory, Research Imaging Centre, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario
| | - Michael Joseph
- Kimel Family Translational Imaging-Genetics Laboratory, Research Imaging Centre, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario
| | - Hajer Nakua
- Kimel Family Translational Imaging-Genetics Laboratory, Research Imaging Centre, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario
| | - Aristotle N Voineskos
- Kimel Family Translational Imaging-Genetics Laboratory, Research Imaging Centre, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario
| | | | | | | | | | - Veena A Nair
- University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA
| | | | | | - Koji Kamagata
- Department of Radiology, Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine, Tokyo Japan
| | - Yuya Saito
- Department of Radiology, Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine, Tokyo Japan
| | - Wataru Uchida
- Department of Radiology, Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine, Tokyo Japan
| | - Christina Andica
- Department of Radiology, Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine, Tokyo Japan
| | - Masahiro Abe
- Department of Radiology, Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine, Tokyo Japan
| | - Roza G Bayrak
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
| | - Claudia A M Gandini Wheeler-Kingshott
- NMR Research Unit, Queen Square MS Centre, Department of Neuroinflammation, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Egidio D'Angelo
- Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Italy
| | - Fulvia Palesi
- Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Italy
| | - Giovanni Savini
- Brain MRI 3T Research Center, IRCCS Mondino Foundation, Pavia, Italy
| | - Nicolò Rolandi
- Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Italy
| | - Pamela Guevara
- Universidad de Concepción, Faculty of Engineering, Concepción, Chile
| | - Josselin Houenou
- Université Paris-Saclay, CEA, CNRS, Neurospin, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | | | | | - Cyril Poupon
- Université Paris-Saclay, CEA, CNRS, Neurospin, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Claudio Román
- Universidad de Concepción, Faculty of Engineering, Concepción, Chile
| | - Andrea Vázquez
- Universidad de Concepción, Faculty of Engineering, Concepción, Chile
| | - Chiara Maffei
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Mavilde Arantes
- Department of Biomedicine, Unit of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, Al. Professor Hernâni Monteiro, Porto, Portugal
| | - José Paulo Andrade
- Department of Biomedicine, Unit of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, Al. Professor Hernâni Monteiro, Porto, Portugal
| | - Susana Maria Silva
- Department of Biomedicine, Unit of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, Al. Professor Hernâni Monteiro, Porto, Portugal
| | - Vince D Calhoun
- Tri-institutional Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science (TReNDS), Georgia State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30303, United States
| | - Eduardo Caverzasi
- Neurology Department UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, University of California, San Francisco
| | - Simone Sacco
- Neurology Department UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, University of California, San Francisco
| | - Michael Lauricella
- Memory and Aging Center. UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, University of California, San Francisco, USA
| | - Franco Pestilli
- Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, TX 78731, USA
| | - Daniel Bullock
- Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, TX 78731, USA
| | - Yang Zhan
- Brain Cognition and Brain Disease Institute, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, 518055, China
| | - Edith Brignoni-Perez
- Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics Division, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, United States
| | - Catherine Lebel
- Department of Radiology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB, Canada, T2N 1N4
| | - Jess E Reynolds
- Department of Radiology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB, Canada, T2N 1N4
| | - Igor Nestrasil
- Division of Clinical Behavioral Neuroscience, Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
| | - René Labounek
- Division of Clinical Behavioral Neuroscience, Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
| | - Christophe Lenglet
- Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, Department of Radiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
| | - Amy Paulson
- Division of Clinical Behavioral Neuroscience, Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
| | - Stefania Aulicka
- Department of Paediatric Neurology, University Hospital and Medicine Faculty, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
| | | | - Katja Heuer
- Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity (CRI), INSERM U1284, Université de Paris, Paris, France
| | - Bramsh Qamar Chandio
- Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
| | - Javier Guaje
- Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
| | - Wei Tang
- Department of Computer Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
| | | | - Rajikha Raja
- University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR, USA
| | - Adam W Anderson
- Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Bennett A Landman
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
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15
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Grisot G, Haber SN, Yendiki A. Diffusion MRI and anatomic tracing in the same brain reveal common failure modes of tractography. Neuroimage 2021; 239:118300. [PMID: 34171498 PMCID: PMC8475636 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118300] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2021] [Revised: 04/29/2021] [Accepted: 06/21/2021] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Anatomic tracing is recognized as a critical source of knowledge on brain circuitry that can be used to assess the accuracy of diffusion MRI (dMRI) tractography. However, most prior studies that have performed such assessments have used dMRI and tracer data from different brains and/or have been limited in the scope of dMRI analysis methods allowed by the data. In this work, we perform a quantitative, voxel-wise comparison of dMRI tractography and anatomic tracing data in the same macaque brain. An ex vivo dMRI acquisition with high angular resolution and high maximum b-value allows us to compare a range of q-space sampling, orientation reconstruction, and tractography strategies. The availability of tracing in the same brain allows us to localize the sources of tractography errors and to identify axonal configurations that lead to such errors consistently, across dMRI acquisition and analysis strategies. We find that these common failure modes involve geometries such as branching or turning, which cannot be modeled well by crossing fibers. We also find that the default thresholds that are commonly used in tractography correspond to rather conservative, low-sensitivity operating points. While deterministic tractography tends to have higher sensitivity than probabilistic tractography in that very conservative threshold regime, the latter outperforms the former as the threshold is relaxed to avoid missing true anatomical connections. On the other hand, the q-space sampling scheme and maximum b-value have less of an impact on accuracy. Finally, using scans from a set of additional macaque brains, we show that there is enough inter-individual variability to warrant caution when dMRI and tracer data come from different animals, as is often the case in the tractography validation literature. Taken together, our results provide insights on the limitations of current tractography methods and on the critical role that anatomic tracing can play in identifying potential avenues for improvement.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Suzanne N Haber
- Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, United States; McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, United States
| | - Anastasia Yendiki
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, United States.
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16
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The Complex Hodological Architecture of the Macaque Dorsal Intraparietal Areas as Emerging from Neural Tracers and DW-MRI Tractography. eNeuro 2021; 8:ENEURO.0102-21.2021. [PMID: 34039649 PMCID: PMC8266221 DOI: 10.1523/eneuro.0102-21.2021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2021] [Revised: 04/21/2021] [Accepted: 05/01/2021] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
In macaque monkeys, dorsal intraparietal areas are involved in several daily visuomotor actions. However, their border and sources of cortical afferents remain loosely defined. Combining retrograde histologic tracing and MRI diffusion-based tractography, we found a complex hodology of the dorsal bank of the intraparietal sulcus (db-IPS), which can be subdivided into a rostral intraparietal area PEip, projecting to the spinal cord, and a caudal medial intraparietal area MIP lacking such projections. Both include an anterior and a posterior sector, emerging from their ipsilateral, gradient-like connectivity profiles. As tractography estimations, we used the cross-sectional area of the white matter bundles connecting each area with other parietal and frontal regions, after selecting regions of interest (ROIs) corresponding to the injection sites of neural tracers. For most connections, we found a significant correlation between the proportions of cells projecting to all sectors of PEip and MIP along the continuum of the db-IPS and tractography. The latter also revealed “false positive” but plausible connections awaiting histologic validation.
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17
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Brain connections derived from diffusion MRI tractography can be highly anatomically accurate-if we know where white matter pathways start, where they end, and where they do not go. Brain Struct Funct 2020; 225:2387-2402. [PMID: 32816112 DOI: 10.1007/s00429-020-02129-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/02/2020] [Accepted: 08/07/2020] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
MR Tractography, which is based on MRI measures of water diffusivity, is currently the only method available for noninvasive reconstruction of fiber pathways in the brain. However, it has several fundamental limitations that call into question its accuracy in many applications. Therefore, there has been intense interest in defining and mitigating the intrinsic limitations of the method. Recent studies have reported that tractography is inherently limited in its ability to accurately reconstruct the connections of the brain, when based on voxel-averaged estimates of local fiber orientation alone. Several validation studies have confirmed that tractography techniques are plagued by both false-positive and false-negative connections. However, these validation studies which quantify sensitivity and specificity, particularly in animal models, have not utilized prior anatomical knowledge, as is done in the human literature, for virtual dissection of white matter pathways, instead assessing tractography implemented in a relatively unconstrained manner. Thus, they represent a worse-case scenario for bundle-segmentation techniques and may not be indicative of the anatomical accuracy in the process of bundle segmentation, where streamline filtering using inclusion and exclusion regions-of-interest is common. With this in mind, the aim of the current study is to investigate and quantify the upper bounds of accuracy using current tractography methods. Making use of the same dataset utilized in two seminal validation papers, we show that prior anatomical knowledge in the form of manually placed or template-driven constraints can significantly improve the anatomical accuracy of estimated brain connections. Thus, we show that it is possible to achieve a high sensitivity and high specificity simultaneously, and conclude that current tractography algorithms, in combination with anatomically driven constraints, can result in reconstructions which very accurately reflect the ground truth white matter connections.
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18
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Girard G, Caminiti R, Battaglia-Mayer A, St-Onge E, Ambrosen KS, Eskildsen SF, Krug K, Dyrby TB, Descoteaux M, Thiran JP, Innocenti GM. On the cortical connectivity in the macaque brain: A comparison of diffusion tractography and histological tracing data. Neuroimage 2020; 221:117201. [PMID: 32739552 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117201] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/04/2020] [Revised: 07/17/2020] [Accepted: 07/22/2020] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) tractography is a non-invasive tool to probe neural connections and the structure of the white matter. It has been applied successfully in studies of neurological disorders and normal connectivity. Recent work has revealed that tractography produces a high incidence of false-positive connections, often from "bottleneck" white matter configurations. The rich literature in histological connectivity analysis studies in the macaque monkey enables quantitative evaluation of the performance of tractography algorithms. In this study, we use the intricate connections of frontal, cingulate, and parietal areas, well established by the anatomical literature, to derive a symmetrical histological connectivity matrix composed of 59 cortical areas. We evaluate the performance of fifteen diffusion tractography algorithms, including global, deterministic, and probabilistic state-of-the-art methods for the connectivity predictions of 1711 distinct pairs of areas, among which 680 are reported connected by the literature. The diffusion connectivity analysis was performed on a different ex-vivo macaque brain, acquired using multi-shell DW-MRI protocol, at high spatial and angular resolutions. Across all tested algorithms, the true-positive and true-negative connections were dominant over false-positive and false-negative connections, respectively. Moreover, three-quarters of streamlines had endpoints location in agreement with histological data, on average. Furthermore, probabilistic streamline tractography algorithms show the best performances in predicting which areas are connected. Altogether, we propose a method for quantitative evaluation of tractography algorithms, which aims at improving the sensitivity and the specificity of diffusion-based connectivity analysis. Overall, those results confirm the usefulness of tractography in predicting connectivity, although errors are produced. Many of the errors result from bottleneck white matter configurations near the cortical grey matter and should be the target of future implementation of methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabriel Girard
- Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Center for BioMedical Imaging, Lausanne, Switzerland; Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
| | - Roberto Caminiti
- Neuroscience and Behavior Laboratory, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Rome, Italy
| | | | - Etienne St-Onge
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Lab, Computer Science Department, Faculty of Science, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Canada
| | - Karen S Ambrosen
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark; Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Center for Functional and Diagnostic Imaging and Research, Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre, Hvidovre, Denmark
| | - Simon F Eskildsen
- Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Kristine Krug
- Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom; Institute of Biology, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany; Leibniz-Insitute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Tim B Dyrby
- Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Center for Functional and Diagnostic Imaging and Research, Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre, Hvidovre, Denmark; Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Maxime Descoteaux
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Lab, Computer Science Department, Faculty of Science, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Canada
| | - Jean-Philippe Thiran
- Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Center for BioMedical Imaging, Lausanne, Switzerland; Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Giorgio M Innocenti
- Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; Brain and Mind Institute, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
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19
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Open access resource for cellular-resolution analyses of corticocortical connectivity in the marmoset monkey. Nat Commun 2020; 11:1133. [PMID: 32111833 PMCID: PMC7048793 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14858-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 56] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/24/2019] [Accepted: 02/03/2020] [Indexed: 12/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Understanding the principles of neuronal connectivity requires tools for efficient quantification and visualization of large datasets. The primate cortex is particularly challenging due to its complex mosaic of areas, which in many cases lack clear boundaries. Here, we introduce a resource that allows exploration of results of 143 retrograde tracer injections in the marmoset neocortex. Data obtained in different animals are registered to a common stereotaxic space using an algorithm guided by expert delineation of histological borders, allowing accurate assignment of connections to areas despite interindividual variability. The resource incorporates tools for analyses relative to cytoarchitectural areas, including statistical properties such as the fraction of labeled neurons and the percentage of supragranular neurons. It also provides purely spatial (parcellation-free) data, based on the stereotaxic coordinates of 2 million labeled neurons. This resource helps bridge the gap between high-density cellular connectivity studies in rodents and imaging-based analyses of human brains. Understanding principles of neuronal connectivity requires tools for quantification and visualization of large datasets. Here, the authors introduce an online resource encompassing the coordinates of two million neurons labelled by tracer injections in the marmoset cortex, and analysis tools.
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20
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Delettre C, Messé A, Dell LA, Foubet O, Heuer K, Larrat B, Meriaux S, Mangin JF, Reillo I, de Juan Romero C, Borrell V, Toro R, Hilgetag CC. Comparison between diffusion MRI tractography and histological tract-tracing of cortico-cortical structural connectivity in the ferret brain. Netw Neurosci 2019; 3:1038-1050. [PMID: 31637337 PMCID: PMC6777980 DOI: 10.1162/netn_a_00098] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/22/2019] [Accepted: 05/23/2019] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
The anatomical wiring of the brain is a central focus in network neuroscience. Diffusion MRI tractography offers the unique opportunity to investigate the brain fiber architecture in vivo and noninvasively. However, its reliability is still highly debated. Here, we explored the ability of diffusion MRI tractography to match invasive anatomical tract-tracing connectivity data of the ferret brain. We also investigated the influence of several state-of-the-art tractography algorithms on this match to ground truth connectivity data. Tract-tracing connectivity data were obtained from retrograde tracer injections into the occipital, parietal, and temporal cortices of adult ferrets. We found that the relative densities of projections identified from the anatomical experiments were highly correlated with the estimates from all the studied diffusion tractography algorithms (Spearman's rho ranging from 0.67 to 0.91), while only small, nonsignificant variations appeared across the tractography algorithms. These results are comparable to findings reported in mouse and monkey, increasing the confidence in diffusion MRI tractography results. Moreover, our results provide insights into the variations of sensitivity and specificity of the tractography algorithms, and hence into the influence of choosing one algorithm over another.
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Affiliation(s)
- Céline Delettre
- Unité de Génétique Humaine et Fonctions Cognitives, Institut Pasteur, UMR 3571, CNRS, Paris, France
- Institute of Computational Neuroscience, University Medical Center Eppendorf, Hamburg University, Hamburg, Germany
- Université Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France
| | - Arnaud Messé
- Institute of Computational Neuroscience, University Medical Center Eppendorf, Hamburg University, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Leigh-Anne Dell
- Institute of Computational Neuroscience, University Medical Center Eppendorf, Hamburg University, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Ophélie Foubet
- Unité de Génétique Humaine et Fonctions Cognitives, Institut Pasteur, UMR 3571, CNRS, Paris, France
| | - Katja Heuer
- Unité de Génétique Humaine et Fonctions Cognitives, Institut Pasteur, UMR 3571, CNRS, Paris, France
- Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Benoit Larrat
- NeuroSpin, CEA, Paris-Saclay University, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | | | | | - Isabel Reillo
- Developmental Neurobiology Unit, Instituto de Neurociencias, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Sant Joan d’Alacant, Spain
| | - Camino de Juan Romero
- Developmental Neurobiology Unit, Instituto de Neurociencias, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Sant Joan d’Alacant, Spain
| | - Victor Borrell
- Developmental Neurobiology Unit, Instituto de Neurociencias, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Sant Joan d’Alacant, Spain
| | - Roberto Toro
- Unité de Génétique Humaine et Fonctions Cognitives, Institut Pasteur, UMR 3571, CNRS, Paris, France
- Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity (CRI), Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France
| | - Claus C. Hilgetag
- Institute of Computational Neuroscience, University Medical Center Eppendorf, Hamburg University, Hamburg, Germany
- Department of Health Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
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Nemanich ST, Mueller BA, Gillick BT. Neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging quantifies corticospinal tract microstructural organization in children with unilateral cerebral palsy. Hum Brain Mapp 2019; 40:4888-4900. [PMID: 31355991 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.24744] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2019] [Revised: 07/17/2019] [Accepted: 07/17/2019] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Children with unilateral cerebral palsy (UCP) due to early brain injury exhibit disrupted connectivity of corticospinal tracts (CSTs), which can be quantified using diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DWI). Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is commonly used to quantify white matter organization, however, this model lacks the biological specificity to accurately describe underlying microstructural properties. Newer approaches, such as neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI), may provide more biologically accurate information regarding CST microstructure. In this study, we directly compared metrics of CST microstructure using NODDI and DTI models to characterize the microstructural organization of corticospinal pathways. Twenty participants with UCP participating in a neuromodulation/rehabilitation intervention underwent imaging including multi-shell DWI; 10 participants' datasets were adequately completed for neuroimaging analysis. Task fMRI-guided probabilistic tractography from motor cortex to brainstem was performed at baseline and follow-up to reconstruct the CSTs. Diffusion metrics were compared between hemispheres at baseline, and between baseline and follow-up to test for intervention effects. Correlation analyses were used to compare baseline metrics to changes in hand function following the intervention. DTI results showed that mean fractional anisotropy in lesioned and nonlesioned CSTs did not significantly differ, but mean, axial, and radial diffusivity were greater in the lesioned CST. For NODDI, intracellular volume fraction (ICVF) and orientation dispersion index (ODI) were lower in the lesioned CST. Unimanual function was strongly correlated with ICVF, but not FA. NODDI may reveal distinct properties of CST microstructure that are linked to motor function, indicating their potential in characterizing brain structure and development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samuel T Nemanich
- Division of Physical Therapy, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota
| | - Bryon A Mueller
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota
| | - Bernadette T Gillick
- Division of Physical Therapy, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota
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22
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Schilling KG, Gao Y, Stepniewska I, Janve V, Landman BA, Anderson AW. Histologically derived fiber response functions for diffusion MRI vary across white matter fibers-An ex vivo validation study in the squirrel monkey brain. NMR IN BIOMEDICINE 2019; 32:e4090. [PMID: 30908803 PMCID: PMC6525086 DOI: 10.1002/nbm.4090] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/10/2018] [Revised: 01/25/2019] [Accepted: 02/16/2019] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Understanding the relationship between the diffusion-weighted MRI signal and the arrangement of white matter fibers is fundamental for accurate voxel-wise reconstruction of the fiber orientation distribution (FOD) and subsequent fiber tractography. Spherical deconvolution reconstruction techniques model the diffusion signal as the convolution of the FOD with a response function that represents the signal profile of a single fiber orientation. Thus, given the signal and a fiber response function, the FOD can be estimated in every imaging voxel by deconvolution. However, the selection of the appropriate response function remains relatively under-studied, and requires further validation. In this work, using 3D histologically defined FODs and the corresponding diffusion signal from three ex vivo squirrel monkey brains, we derive the ground truth response functions. We find that the histologically derived response functions differ from those conventionally used. Next, we find that response functions statistically vary across brain regions, which suggests that the practice of using the same kernel throughout the brain is not optimal. We show that different kernels lead to different FOD reconstructions, which in turn can lead to different tractography results depending on algorithmic parameters, with large variations in the accuracy of resulting reconstructions. Together, these results suggest there is room for improvement in estimating and understanding the relationship between the diffusion signal and the underlying FOD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kurt G Schilling
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Yurui Gao
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | | | - Vaibhav Janve
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Bennett A Landman
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
- Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
- Department of Electrical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Adam W Anderson
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
- Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
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23
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Schilling KG, Daducci A, Maier-Hein K, Poupon C, Houde JC, Nath V, Anderson AW, Landman BA, Descoteaux M. Challenges in diffusion MRI tractography - Lessons learned from international benchmark competitions. Magn Reson Imaging 2019; 57:194-209. [PMID: 30503948 PMCID: PMC6331218 DOI: 10.1016/j.mri.2018.11.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 70] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/08/2018] [Accepted: 11/17/2018] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
Diffusion MRI (dMRI) fiber tractography has become a pillar of the neuroimaging community due to its ability to noninvasively map the structural connectivity of the brain. Despite widespread use in clinical and research domains, these methods suffer from several potential drawbacks or limitations. Thus, validating the accuracy and reproducibility of techniques is critical for sound scientific conclusions and effective clinical outcomes. Towards this end, a number of international benchmark competitions, or "challenges", has been organized by the diffusion MRI community in order to investigate the reliability of the tractography process by providing a platform to compare algorithms and results in a fair manner, and evaluate common and emerging algorithms in an effort to advance the state of the field. In this paper, we summarize the lessons from a decade of challenges in tractography, and give perspective on the past, present, and future "challenges" that the field of diffusion tractography faces.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kurt G Schilling
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States of America.
| | | | - Klaus Maier-Hein
- Division of Medical Image Computing, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg 69120, Germany
| | - Cyril Poupon
- Neurospin, Frédéric Joliot Life Sciences Institute, CEA, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Jean-Christophe Houde
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Lab (SCIL), Computer Science Department, Université de Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada
| | - Vishwesh Nath
- Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States of America
| | - Adam W Anderson
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States of America; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States of America
| | - Bennett A Landman
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States of America; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States of America; Department of Electrical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States of America
| | - Maxime Descoteaux
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Lab (SCIL), Computer Science Department, Université de Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada
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24
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Nath V, Schilling KG, Remedios S, Bayrak RG, Gao Y, Blaber JA, Huo Y, Landman BA, Anderson AW. LEARNING 3D WHITE MATTER MICROSTRUCTURE FROM 2D HISTOLOGY. PROCEEDINGS. IEEE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON BIOMEDICAL IMAGING 2019; 2019:186-190. [PMID: 32211122 PMCID: PMC7092618 DOI: 10.1109/isbi.2019.8759388] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Histological analysis is typically the gold standard for validating measures of tissue microstructure derived from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrasts. However, most histological investigations are inherently 2-dimensional (2D), due to increased field-of-view, higher in-plane resolutions, ease of acquisition, decreased costs, and a large number of available contrasts compared to 3-dimensional (3D) analysis. Because of this, it would be of great interest to be able to learn the 3D tissue microstructure from 2D histology. In this study, we use diffusion MRI (dMRI) of a squirrel monkey brain and corresponding myelin stained sections in combination with a convolution neural network to learn the relationship between the 3D diffusion estimated axonal fiber orientation distributions and the 2D myelin stain. We find that we are able to estimate the 3D fiber distribution with moderate to high angular agreement with the ground truth (median angular correlation coefficients of 0.48 across the unseen slices). This network could be used to validate dMRI neuronal structural measurements in 3D, even if only 2D histology is available for validation. Generalization is possible to transfer this network to human stained sections to infer the 3D fiber distribution at resolutions currently unachievable with dMRI, which would allow diffusion fiber tractography at unprecedented resolutions. We envision the use of similar networks to learn other 3D microstructural measures from an array of potential common 2D histology contrasts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vishwesh Nath
- Department of Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
| | - Kurt G Schilling
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
| | - Samuel Remedios
- Department of Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
| | - Roza G Bayrak
- Department of Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
| | - Yurui Gao
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
| | - Justin A Blaber
- Department of Electrical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
| | - Yuankai Huo
- Department of Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
| | - Bennett A Landman
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
- Department of Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
- Department of Electrical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
| | - A W Anderson
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
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25
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Schilling KG, Nath V, Hansen C, Parvathaneni P, Blaber J, Gao Y, Neher P, Aydogan DB, Shi Y, Ocampo-Pineda M, Schiavi S, Daducci A, Girard G, Barakovic M, Rafael-Patino J, Romascano D, Rensonnet G, Pizzolato M, Bates A, Fischi E, Thiran JP, Canales-Rodríguez EJ, Huang C, Zhu H, Zhong L, Cabeen R, Toga AW, Rheault F, Theaud G, Houde JC, Sidhu J, Chamberland M, Westin CF, Dyrby TB, Verma R, Rathi Y, Irfanoglu MO, Thomas C, Pierpaoli C, Descoteaux M, Anderson AW, Landman BA. Limits to anatomical accuracy of diffusion tractography using modern approaches. Neuroimage 2018; 185:1-11. [PMID: 30317017 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.10.029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 144] [Impact Index Per Article: 24.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/13/2018] [Revised: 09/14/2018] [Accepted: 10/09/2018] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Diffusion MRI fiber tractography is widely used to probe the structural connectivity of the brain, with a range of applications in both clinical and basic neuroscience. Despite widespread use, tractography has well-known pitfalls that limits the anatomical accuracy of this technique. Numerous modern methods have been developed to address these shortcomings through advances in acquisition, modeling, and computation. To test whether these advances improve tractography accuracy, we organized the 3-D Validation of Tractography with Experimental MRI (3D-VoTEM) challenge at the ISBI 2018 conference. We made available three unique independent tractography validation datasets - a physical phantom and two ex vivo brain specimens - resulting in 176 distinct submissions from 9 research groups. By comparing results over a wide range of fiber complexities and algorithmic strategies, this challenge provides a more comprehensive assessment of tractography's inherent limitations than has been reported previously. The central results were consistent across all sub-challenges in that, despite advances in tractography methods, the anatomical accuracy of tractography has not dramatically improved in recent years. Taken together, our results independently confirm findings from decades of tractography validation studies, demonstrate inherent limitations in reconstructing white matter pathways using diffusion MRI data alone, and highlight the need for alternative or combinatorial strategies to accurately map the fiber pathways of the brain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kurt G Schilling
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
| | - Vishwesh Nath
- Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Colin Hansen
- Department of Electrical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | | | - Justin Blaber
- Department of Electrical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Yurui Gao
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Peter Neher
- Division of Medical Image Computing, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Dogu Baran Aydogan
- Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI), USC Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Yonggang Shi
- Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI), USC Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | | | - Simona Schiavi
- Computer Science Department, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
| | | | - Gabriel Girard
- Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Muhamed Barakovic
- Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Jonathan Rafael-Patino
- Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - David Romascano
- Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Gaëtan Rensonnet
- Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Marco Pizzolato
- Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Alice Bates
- Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Elda Fischi
- Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Jean-Philippe Thiran
- Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Erick J Canales-Rodríguez
- Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Chao Huang
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Hongtu Zhu
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Liming Zhong
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Medical Image Processing, School of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Ryan Cabeen
- Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI), USC Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Arthur W Toga
- Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI), USC Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Francois Rheault
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Lab (SCIL), Computer Science Department, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada
| | - Guillaume Theaud
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Lab (SCIL), Computer Science Department, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada
| | - Jean-Christophe Houde
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Lab (SCIL), Computer Science Department, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada
| | - Jasmeen Sidhu
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Lab (SCIL), Computer Science Department, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada
| | - Maxime Chamberland
- Cardiff University, Brain Research Imaging Centre, School of Psychology, Cardiff, UK
| | | | - Tim B Dyrby
- Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Centre for Functional and Diagnostic Imaging and Research, Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre, Hvidovre, Denmark; Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Ragini Verma
- Center for Biomedical Image Computing and Analytics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Yogesh Rathi
- Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA
| | - M Okan Irfanoglu
- National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Cibu Thomas
- Section on Learning and Plasticity, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, NIMH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Carlo Pierpaoli
- National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Maxime Descoteaux
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Lab (SCIL), Computer Science Department, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada
| | - Adam W Anderson
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Bennett A Landman
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA; Department of Electrical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
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