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Lu Y, Cui Y, Cao L, Dong Z, Cheng L, Wu W, Wang C, Liu X, Liu Y, Zhang B, Li D, Zhao B, Wang H, Li K, Ma L, Shi W, Li W, Ma Y, Du Z, Zhang J, Xiong H, Luo N, Liu Y, Hou X, Han J, Sun H, Cai T, Peng Q, Feng L, Wang J, Paxinos G, Yang Z, Fan L, Jiang T. Macaque Brainnetome Atlas: A multifaceted brain map with parcellation, connection, and histology. Sci Bull (Beijing) 2024; 69:2241-2259. [PMID: 38580551 DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2024.03.031] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2023] [Revised: 01/18/2024] [Accepted: 03/11/2024] [Indexed: 04/07/2024]
Abstract
The rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) is a crucial experimental animal that shares many genetic, brain organizational, and behavioral characteristics with humans. A macaque brain atlas is fundamental to biomedical and evolutionary research. However, even though connectivity is vital for understanding brain functions, a connectivity-based whole-brain atlas of the macaque has not previously been made. In this study, we created a new whole-brain map, the Macaque Brainnetome Atlas (MacBNA), based on the anatomical connectivity profiles provided by high angular and spatial resolution ex vivo diffusion MRI data. The new atlas consists of 248 cortical and 56 subcortical regions as well as their structural and functional connections. The parcellation and the diffusion-based tractography were evaluated with invasive neuronal-tracing and Nissl-stained images. As a demonstrative application, the structural connectivity divergence between macaque and human brains was mapped using the Brainnetome atlases of those two species to uncover the genetic underpinnings of the evolutionary changes in brain structure. The resulting resource includes: (1) the thoroughly delineated Macaque Brainnetome Atlas (MacBNA), (2) regional connectivity profiles, (3) the postmortem high-resolution macaque diffusion and T2-weighted MRI dataset (Brainnetome-8), and (4) multi-contrast MRI, neuronal-tracing, and histological images collected from a single macaque. MacBNA can serve as a common reference frame for mapping multifaceted features across modalities and spatial scales and for integrative investigation and characterization of brain organization and function. Therefore, it will enrich the collaborative resource platform for nonhuman primates and facilitate translational and comparative neuroscience research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuheng Lu
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Yue Cui
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Long Cao
- Henan Key Laboratory of Imaging and Intelligent Processing, PLA Strategic Support Force Information Engineering University, Zhengzhou 450001, China; Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of the Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China
| | - Zhenwei Dong
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Luqi Cheng
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guilin 541004, China; Research Center for Augmented Intelligence, Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou 311100, China
| | - Wen Wu
- Research Center for Augmented Intelligence, Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou 311100, China
| | - Changshuo Wang
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; Sino-Danish College, University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Xinyi Liu
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Youtong Liu
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Baogui Zhang
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Deying Li
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Bokai Zhao
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Haiyan Wang
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
| | - Kaixin Li
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Harbin University of Science and Technology, Harbin 150080, China
| | - Liang Ma
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Weiyang Shi
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Wen Li
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Yawei Ma
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; Sino-Danish College, University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Zongchang Du
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Jiaqi Zhang
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Hui Xiong
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
| | - Na Luo
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
| | - Yanyan Liu
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
| | - Xiaoxiao Hou
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
| | - Jinglu Han
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; Sino-Danish College, University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Hongji Sun
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
| | - Tao Cai
- Research Center for Augmented Intelligence, Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou 311100, China
| | - Qiang Peng
- Research Center for Augmented Intelligence, Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou 311100, China
| | - Linqing Feng
- Research Center for Augmented Intelligence, Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou 311100, China
| | - Jiaojian Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research, Institute of Primate Translational Medicine, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, China
| | - George Paxinos
- Neuroscience Research Australia and The University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2031, Australia
| | - Zhengyi Yang
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; Xiaoxiang Institute for Brain Health and Yongzhou Central Hospital, Yongzhou 425000, China.
| | - Lingzhong Fan
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
| | - Tianzi Jiang
- Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; Research Center for Augmented Intelligence, Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou 311100, China; Xiaoxiang Institute for Brain Health and Yongzhou Central Hospital, Yongzhou 425000, China.
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Zhang Y, Shen SX, Bibic A, Wang X. Evolutionary continuity and divergence of auditory dorsal and ventral pathways in primates revealed by ultra-high field diffusion MRI. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2313831121. [PMID: 38377216 PMCID: PMC10907247 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2313831121] [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: 08/10/2023] [Accepted: 01/22/2024] [Indexed: 02/22/2024] Open
Abstract
Auditory dorsal and ventral pathways in the human brain play important roles in supporting speech and language processing. However, the evolutionary root of the dual auditory pathways in the primate brain is unclear. By parcellating the auditory cortex of marmosets (a New World monkey species), macaques (an Old World monkey species), and humans using the same individual-based analysis method and tracking the pathways from the auditory cortex based on multi-shell diffusion-weighted MRI (dMRI), homologous auditory dorsal and ventral fiber tracks were identified in these primate species. The ventral pathway was found to be well conserved in all three primate species analyzed but extend to more anterior temporal regions in humans. In contrast, the dorsal pathway showed a divergence between monkey and human brains. First, frontal regions in the human brain have stronger connections to the higher-level auditory regions than to the lower-level auditory regions along the dorsal pathway, while frontal regions in the monkey brain show opposite connection patterns along the dorsal pathway. Second, the left lateralization of the dorsal pathway is only found in humans. Moreover, the connectivity strength of the dorsal pathway in marmosets is more similar to that of humans than macaques. These results demonstrate the continuity and divergence of the dual auditory pathways in the primate brains along the evolutionary path, suggesting that the putative neural networks supporting human speech and language processing might have emerged early in primate evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yang Zhang
- Laboratory of Auditory Neurophysiology, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD21205
| | - Sherry Xinyi Shen
- Laboratory of Auditory Neurophysiology, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD21205
| | - Adnan Bibic
- Department of Radiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD21205
- Kirby Research Center for Functional Brain Imaging, Kennedy Krieger Institute, F. M. Kirby Center, Baltimore, MD21205
| | - Xiaoqin Wang
- Laboratory of Auditory Neurophysiology, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD21205
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3
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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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4
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Arefin TM, Lee CH, Liang Z, Rallapalli H, Wadghiri YZ, Turnbull DH, Zhang J. Towards reliable reconstruction of the mouse brain corticothalamic connectivity using diffusion MRI. Neuroimage 2023; 273:120111. [PMID: 37060936 PMCID: PMC10149621 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120111] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/29/2022] [Revised: 03/29/2023] [Accepted: 04/12/2023] [Indexed: 04/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) tractography has yielded intriguing insights into brain circuits and their relationship to behavior in response to gene mutations or neurological diseases across a number of species. Still, existing tractography approaches suffer from limited sensitivity and specificity, leading to uncertain interpretation of the reconstructed connections. Hence, in this study, we aimed to optimize the imaging and computational pipeline to achieve the best possible spatial overlaps between the tractography and tracer-based axonal projection maps within the mouse brain corticothalamic network. We developed a dMRI-based atlas of the mouse forebrain with structural labels imported from the Allen Mouse Brain Atlas (AMBA). Using the atlas and dMRI tractography, we first reconstructed detailed node-to-node mouse brain corticothalamic structural connectivity matrices using different imaging and tractography parameters. We then investigated the effects of each condition for accurate reconstruction of the corticothalamic projections by quantifying the similarities between the tractography and the tracer data from the Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas (AMBCA). Our results suggest that these parameters significantly affect tractography outcomes and our atlas can be used to investigate macroscopic structural connectivity in the mouse brain. Furthermore, tractography in mouse brain gray matter still face challenges and need improved imaging and tractography methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tanzil Mahmud Arefin
- Bernard and Irene Schwartz Center for Biomedical Imaging (CBI), Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research (CAI2R), Department of Radiology, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, 660 First Ave., New York City, NY, United States; Center for Neurotechnology in Mental Health Research, Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, United States
| | - Choong Heon Lee
- Bernard and Irene Schwartz Center for Biomedical Imaging (CBI), Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research (CAI2R), Department of Radiology, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, 660 First Ave., New York City, NY, United States
| | - Zifei Liang
- Bernard and Irene Schwartz Center for Biomedical Imaging (CBI), Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research (CAI2R), Department of Radiology, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, 660 First Ave., New York City, NY, United States
| | - Harikrishna Rallapalli
- Bernard and Irene Schwartz Center for Biomedical Imaging (CBI), Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research (CAI2R), Department of Radiology, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, 660 First Ave., New York City, NY, United States
| | - Youssef Z Wadghiri
- Bernard and Irene Schwartz Center for Biomedical Imaging (CBI), Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research (CAI2R), Department of Radiology, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, 660 First Ave., New York City, NY, United States
| | - Daniel H Turnbull
- Bernard and Irene Schwartz Center for Biomedical Imaging (CBI), Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research (CAI2R), Department of Radiology, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, 660 First Ave., New York City, NY, United States
| | - Jiangyang Zhang
- Bernard and Irene Schwartz Center for Biomedical Imaging (CBI), Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research (CAI2R), Department of Radiology, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, 660 First Ave., New York City, NY, United States.
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5
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Spilling CA, Howe FA, Barrick TR. Optimization of quasi-diffusion magnetic resonance imaging for quantitative accuracy and time-efficient acquisition. Magn Reson Med 2022; 88:2532-2547. [PMID: 36054778 PMCID: PMC9804504 DOI: 10.1002/mrm.29420] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2021] [Revised: 07/17/2022] [Accepted: 07/30/2022] [Indexed: 01/05/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE Quasi-diffusion MRI (QDI) is a novel quantitative technique based on the continuous time random walk model of diffusion dynamics. QDI provides estimates of the diffusion coefficient, <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:semantics><mml:mrow><mml:mspace/> <mml:msub><mml:mi>D</mml:mi> <mml:mrow><mml:mn>1</mml:mn> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation>$$ {D}_{1,2} $$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> in mm2 s-1 and a fractional exponent, <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:semantics><mml:mrow><mml:mi>α</mml:mi></mml:mrow> <mml:annotation>$$ \upalpha $$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> , defining the non-Gaussianity of the diffusion signal decay. Here, the b-value selection for rapid clinical acquisition of QDI tensor imaging (QDTI) data is optimized. METHODS Clinically appropriate QDTI acquisitions were optimized in healthy volunteers with respect to a multi-b-value reference (MbR) dataset comprising 29 diffusion-sensitized images arrayed between <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:semantics><mml:mrow><mml:mi>b</mml:mi> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:mn>0</mml:mn></mml:mrow> <mml:annotation>$$ b=0 $$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> and 5000 s mm-2 . The effects of varying maximum b-value ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mi>b</mml:mi> <mml:mi>max</mml:mi></mml:msub> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation>$$ {b}_{\mathrm{max}} $$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> ), number of b-value shells, and the effects of Rician noise were investigated. RESULTS QDTI measures showed <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mi>b</mml:mi> <mml:mi>max</mml:mi></mml:msub> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation>$$ {b}_{\mathrm{max}} $$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> dependence, most significantly for <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:semantics><mml:mrow><mml:mi>α</mml:mi></mml:mrow> <mml:annotation>$$ \upalpha $$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> in white matter, which monotonically decreased with higher <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mi>b</mml:mi> <mml:mi>max</mml:mi></mml:msub> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation>$$ {b}_{\mathrm{max}} $$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> leading to improved tissue contrast. Optimized 2 b-value shell acquisitions showed small systematic differences in QDTI measures relative to MbR values, with overestimation of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:semantics><mml:mrow><mml:mspace/> <mml:mspace/> <mml:msub><mml:mi>D</mml:mi> <mml:mrow><mml:mn>1</mml:mn> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation>$$ \kern0.50em {D}_{1,2} $$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> and underestimation of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:semantics><mml:mrow><mml:mi>α</mml:mi></mml:mrow> <mml:annotation>$$ \upalpha $$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> in white matter, and overestimation of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mi>D</mml:mi> <mml:mrow><mml:mn>1</mml:mn> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation>$$ {D}_{1,2} $$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> and <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:semantics><mml:mrow><mml:mi>α</mml:mi></mml:mrow> <mml:annotation>$$ \upalpha $$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> anisotropies in gray and white matter. Additional shells improved the accuracy, precision, and reliability of QDTI estimates with 3 and 4 shells at <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mi>b</mml:mi> <mml:mi>max</mml:mi></mml:msub> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:mn>5000</mml:mn></mml:mrow> <mml:annotation>$$ {b}_{\mathrm{max}}=5000 $$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> s mm-2 , and 4 b-value shells at <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mi>b</mml:mi> <mml:mi>max</mml:mi></mml:msub> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:mn>3960</mml:mn></mml:mrow> <mml:annotation>$$ {b}_{\mathrm{max}}=3960 $$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> s mm-2 , providing minimal bias in <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mi>D</mml:mi> <mml:mrow><mml:mn>1</mml:mn> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation>$$ {D}_{1,2} $$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> and <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:semantics><mml:mrow><mml:mi>α</mml:mi></mml:mrow> <mml:annotation>$$ \upalpha $$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> compared to the MbR. CONCLUSION A highly detailed optimization of non-Gaussian dMRI for in vivo brain imaging was performed. QDI provided robust parameterization of non-Gaussian diffusion signal decay in clinically feasible imaging times with high reliability, accuracy, and precision of QDTI measures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Catherine A. Spilling
- Neurosciences Research Section, Molecular and Clinical Sciences Research InstituteSt George's University of London
LondonUnited Kingdom
- Centre for Affective Disorders, Department of Psychological Medicine, Division of Academic PsychiatryInstitute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Franklyn A. Howe
- Neurosciences Research Section, Molecular and Clinical Sciences Research InstituteSt George's University of London
LondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Thomas R. Barrick
- Neurosciences Research Section, Molecular and Clinical Sciences Research InstituteSt George's University of London
LondonUnited Kingdom
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6
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Perera D, Wang YK, Lin CT, Nguyen H, Chai R. Improving EEG-Based Driver Distraction Classification Using Brain Connectivity Estimators. SENSORS (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2022; 22:s22166230. [PMID: 36015991 PMCID: PMC9414352 DOI: 10.3390/s22166230] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/15/2022] [Revised: 08/15/2022] [Accepted: 08/15/2022] [Indexed: 05/28/2023]
Abstract
This paper discusses a novel approach to an EEG (electroencephalogram)-based driver distraction classification by using brain connectivity estimators as features. Ten healthy volunteers with more than one year of driving experience and an average age of 24.3 participated in a virtual reality environment with two conditions, a simple math problem-solving task and a lane-keeping task to mimic the distracted driving task and a non-distracted driving task, respectively. Independent component analysis (ICA) was conducted on the selected epochs of six selected components relevant to the frontal, central, parietal, occipital, left motor, and right motor areas. Granger-Geweke causality (GGC), directed transfer function (DTF), partial directed coherence (PDC), and generalized partial directed coherence (GPDC) brain connectivity estimators were used to calculate the connectivity matrixes. These connectivity matrixes were used as features to train the support vector machine (SVM) with the radial basis function (RBF) and classify the distracted and non-distracted driving tasks. GGC, DTF, PDC, and GPDC connectivity estimators yielded the classification accuracies of 82.27%, 70.02%, 86.19%, and 80.95%, respectively. Further analysis of the PDC connectivity estimator was conducted to determine the best window to differentiate between the distracted and non-distracted driving tasks. This study suggests that the PDC connectivity estimator can yield better classification accuracy for driver distractions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dulan Perera
- School of Science, Computing and Engineering Technologies, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia
| | - Yu-Kai Wang
- School of Computer Science, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia
| | - Chin-Teng Lin
- School of Computer Science, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia
| | - Hung Nguyen
- School of Science, Computing and Engineering Technologies, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia
| | - Rifai Chai
- School of Science, Computing and Engineering Technologies, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia
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7
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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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8
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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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9
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Tang-Wright K, Smith JET, Bridge H, Miller KL, Dyrby TB, Ahmed B, Reislev NL, Sallet J, Parker AJ, Krug K. Intra-Areal Visual Topography in Primate Brains Mapped with Probabilistic Tractography of Diffusion-Weighted Imaging. Cereb Cortex 2022; 32:2555-2574. [PMID: 34730185 PMCID: PMC9201591 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab364] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/01/2021] [Revised: 08/28/2021] [Accepted: 08/29/2021] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Noninvasive diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) can be used to map the neural connectivity between distinct areas in the intact brain, but the standard resolution achieved fundamentally limits the sensitivity of such maps. We investigated the sensitivity and specificity of high-resolution postmortem dMRI and probabilistic tractography in rhesus macaque brains to produce retinotopic maps of the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and extrastriate cortical visual area V5/MT based on their topographic connections with the previously established functional retinotopic map of primary visual cortex (V1). We also replicated the differential connectivity of magnocellular and parvocellular LGN compartments with V1 across visual field positions. Predicted topographic maps based on dMRI data largely matched the established retinotopy of both LGN and V5/MT. Furthermore, tractography based on in vivo dMRI data from the same macaque brains acquired at standard field strength (3T) yielded comparable topographic maps in many cases. We conclude that tractography based on dMRI is sensitive enough to reveal the intrinsic organization of ordered connections between topographically organized neural structures and their resultant functional organization.
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Affiliation(s)
- K Tang-Wright
- Department of Physiology Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3PT, UK
| | - J E T Smith
- Department of Physiology Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3PT, UK
- Ernst Strüngmann Institute (ESI) for Neuroscience in cooperation with Max Planck Society, 60528 Frankfurt, Germany
| | - H Bridge
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 9DU, UK
| | - K L Miller
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 9DU, UK
| | - T B Dyrby
- Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Centre for Functional and Diagnostic Imaging and Research, Copenhagen University Hospital, Amager & Hvidovre, 2650 Hvidovre, Denmark
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
| | - B Ahmed
- Department of Physiology Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3PT, UK
| | - N L Reislev
- Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Centre for Functional and Diagnostic Imaging and Research, Copenhagen University Hospital, Amager & Hvidovre, 2650 Hvidovre, Denmark
| | - J Sallet
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3UD, UK
- Université Lyon 1, INSERM, Stem Cell and Brain Research Institute U1208, 69500 Bron, France
| | - A J Parker
- Department of Physiology Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3PT, UK
- Institute of Biology, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany
- Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, 39118 Magdeburg, Germany
| | - K Krug
- Department of Physiology Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3PT, UK
- Institute of Biology, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany
- Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, 39118 Magdeburg, Germany
- Centre for Behavioral Brain Sciences, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany
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10
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Albers KJ, Liptrot MG, Ambrosen KS, Røge R, Herlau T, Andersen KW, Siebner HR, Hansen LK, Dyrby TB, Madsen KH, Schmidt MN, Mørup M. Uncovering Cortical Units of Processing From Multi-Layered Connectomes. Front Neurosci 2022; 16:836259. [PMID: 35360166 PMCID: PMC8960198 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2022.836259] [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: 12/15/2021] [Accepted: 02/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Modern diffusion and functional magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI/fMRI) provide non-invasive high-resolution images from which multi-layered networks of whole-brain structural and functional connectivity can be derived. Unfortunately, the lack of observed correspondence between the connectivity profiles of the two modalities challenges the understanding of the relationship between the functional and structural connectome. Rather than focusing on correspondence at the level of connections we presently investigate correspondence in terms of modular organization according to shared canonical processing units. We use a stochastic block-model (SBM) as a data-driven approach for clustering high-resolution multi-layer whole-brain connectivity networks and use prediction to quantify the extent to which a given clustering accounts for the connectome within a modality. The employed SBM assumes a single underlying parcellation exists across modalities whilst permitting each modality to possess an independent connectivity structure between parcels thereby imposing concurrent functional and structural units but different structural and functional connectivity profiles. We contrast the joint processing units to their modality specific counterparts and find that even though data-driven structural and functional parcellations exhibit substantial differences, attributed to modality specific biases, the joint model is able to achieve a consensus representation that well accounts for both the functional and structural connectome providing improved representations of functional connectivity compared to using functional data alone. This implies that a representation persists in the consensus model that is shared by the individual modalities. We find additional support for this viewpoint when the anatomical correspondence between modalities is removed from the joint modeling. The resultant drop in predictive performance is in general substantial, confirming that the anatomical correspondence of processing units is indeed present between the two modalities. Our findings illustrate how multi-modal integration admits consensus representations well-characterizing each individual modality despite their biases and points to the importance of multi-layered connectomes as providing supplementary information regarding the brain's canonical processing units.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kristoffer Jon Albers
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
- *Correspondence: Kristoffer Jon Albers
| | - Matthew G. Liptrot
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Karen Sandø Ambrosen
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Rasmus Røge
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Tue Herlau
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Kasper Winther Andersen
- Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Centre for Functional and Diagnostic Imaging and Research, Copenhagen University Hospital - Amager and Hvidovre, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Hartwig R. Siebner
- Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Centre for Functional and Diagnostic Imaging and Research, Copenhagen University Hospital - Amager and Hvidovre, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Department of Neurology, Copenhagen University Hospital Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Lars Kai Hansen
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Tim B. Dyrby
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
- Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Centre for Functional and Diagnostic Imaging and Research, Copenhagen University Hospital - Amager and Hvidovre, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Kristoffer H. Madsen
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
- Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Centre for Functional and Diagnostic Imaging and Research, Copenhagen University Hospital - Amager and Hvidovre, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Mikkel N. Schmidt
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Morten Mørup
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
- Morten Mørup
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11
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Nunes RV, Reyes MB, Mejias JF, de Camargo RY. Directed functional and structural connectivity in a large-scale model for the mouse cortex. Netw Neurosci 2022; 5:874-889. [PMID: 35024534 PMCID: PMC8746117 DOI: 10.1162/netn_a_00206] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/12/2021] [Accepted: 08/09/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Inferring the structural connectivity from electrophysiological measurements is a fundamental challenge in systems neuroscience. Directed functional connectivity measures, such as the generalized partial directed coherence (GPDC), provide estimates of the causal influence between areas. However, the relation between causality estimates and structural connectivity is still not clear. We analyzed this problem by evaluating the effectiveness of GPDC to estimate the connectivity of a ground-truth, data-constrained computational model of a large-scale network model of the mouse cortex. The model contains 19 cortical areas composed of spiking neurons, with areas connected by long-range projections with weights obtained from a tract-tracing cortical connectome. We show that GPDC values provide a reasonable estimate of structural connectivity, with an average Pearson correlation over simulations of 0.74. Moreover, even in a typical electrophysiological recording scenario containing five areas, the mean correlation was above 0.6. These results suggest that it may be possible to empirically estimate structural connectivity from functional connectivity even when detailed whole-brain recordings are not achievable. We analyzed the relationship between structural and directed functional connectivity by evaluating the effectiveness of generalized partial directed coherence (GPDC) to estimate the connectivity of a ground-truth, data-constrained computational model of a large-scale network model of the mouse cortex. We show that GPDC values provide a reasonable estimate of structural connectivity even in a typical electrophysiological recording scenario containing few areas. These results suggest that it may be possible to empirically estimate structural connectivity from functional connectivity even when detailed whole-brain recordings are not achievable.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ronaldo V Nunes
- Center for Mathematics, Computing, and Cognition, Universidade Federal do ABC, São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil
| | - Marcelo B Reyes
- Center for Mathematics, Computing, and Cognition, Universidade Federal do ABC, São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil
| | - Jorge F Mejias
- Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Raphael Y de Camargo
- Center for Mathematics, Computing, and Cognition, Universidade Federal do ABC, São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil
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12
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Schilling KG, Tax CMW, Rheault F, Landman BA, Anderson AW, Descoteaux M, Petit L. Prevalence of white matter pathways coming into a single white matter voxel orientation: The bottleneck issue in tractography. Hum Brain Mapp 2021; 43:1196-1213. [PMID: 34921473 PMCID: PMC8837578 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.25697] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2021] [Revised: 10/15/2021] [Accepted: 10/16/2021] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Characterizing and understanding the limitations of diffusion MRI fiber tractography is a prerequisite for methodological advances and innovations which will allow these techniques to accurately map the connections of the human brain. The so-called "crossing fiber problem" has received tremendous attention and has continuously triggered the community to develop novel approaches for disentangling distinctly oriented fiber populations. Perhaps an even greater challenge occurs when multiple white matter bundles converge within a single voxel, or throughout a single brain region, and share the same parallel orientation, before diverging and continuing towards their final cortical or sub-cortical terminations. These so-called "bottleneck" regions contribute to the ill-posed nature of the tractography process, and lead to both false positive and false negative estimated connections. Yet, as opposed to the extent of crossing fibers, a thorough characterization of bottleneck regions has not been performed. The aim of this study is to quantify the prevalence of bottleneck regions. To do this, we use diffusion tractography to segment known white matter bundles of the brain, and assign each bundle to voxels they pass through and to specific orientations within those voxels (i.e. fixels). We demonstrate that bottlenecks occur in greater than 50-70% of fixels in the white matter of the human brain. We find that all projection, association, and commissural fibers contribute to, and are affected by, this phenomenon, and show that even regions traditionally considered "single fiber voxels" often contain multiple fiber populations. Together, this study shows that a majority of white matter presents bottlenecks for tractography which may lead to incorrect or erroneous estimates of brain connectivity or quantitative tractography (i.e., tractometry), and underscores the need for a paradigm shift in the process of tractography and bundle segmentation for studying the fiber pathways of the human brain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kurt G. Schilling
- Department of Radiology & Radiological ScienceVanderbilt University Medical CenterNashvilleTennesseeUSA,Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging ScienceVanderbilt University Medical CenterNashvilleTennesseeUSA
| | - Chantal M. W. Tax
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff University, Cardiff, United KingdomCardiffUK,Image Sciences InstituteUniversity Medical Center UtrechtUtrechtThe Netherlands
| | - Francois Rheault
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer ScienceVanderbilt UniversityNashvilleTennesseeUSA
| | - Bennett A. Landman
- Department of Radiology & Radiological ScienceVanderbilt University Medical CenterNashvilleTennesseeUSA,Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging ScienceVanderbilt University Medical CenterNashvilleTennesseeUSA,Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer ScienceVanderbilt UniversityNashvilleTennesseeUSA,Department of Biomedical EngineeringVanderbilt UniversityNashvilleTennesseeUSA
| | - Adam W. Anderson
- Department of Radiology & Radiological ScienceVanderbilt University Medical CenterNashvilleTennesseeUSA,Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging ScienceVanderbilt University Medical CenterNashvilleTennesseeUSA,Department of Biomedical EngineeringVanderbilt UniversityNashvilleTennesseeUSA
| | - Maxime Descoteaux
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Lab (SCIL), Computer Science DepartmentUniversité de SherbrookeSherbrookeQuebecCanada
| | - Laurent Petit
- Groupe d'Imagerie NeurofonctionnelleInstitut Des Maladies Neurodégénératives, CNRS, CEA University of BordeauxBordeauxFrance
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13
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Sarwar T, Ramamohanarao K, Zalesky A. A critical review of connectome validation studies. NMR IN BIOMEDICINE 2021; 34:e4605. [PMID: 34516016 DOI: 10.1002/nbm.4605] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/12/2021] [Revised: 07/22/2021] [Accepted: 08/01/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Diffusion MRI tractography is the most widely used macroscale method for mapping connectomes in vivo. However, tractography is prone to various errors and biases, and thus tractography-derived connectomes require careful validation. Here, we critically review studies that have developed or utilized phantoms and tracer maps to validate tractography-derived connectomes, either quantitatively or qualitatively. We identify key factors impacting connectome reconstruction accuracy, including streamline seeding, propagation and filtering methods, and consider the strengths and limitations of state-of-the-art connectome phantoms and associated validation studies. These studies demonstrate the inherent limitations of current fiber orientation models and tractography algorithms and their impact on connectome reconstruction accuracy. Reconstructing connectomes with both high sensitivity and high specificity is challenging, given that some tractography methods can generate an abundance of spurious connections, while others can overlook genuine fiber bundles. We argue that streamline filtering can minimize spurious connections and potentially improve the biological plausibility of connectomes derived from tractography. We find that algorithmic choices such as the tractography seeding methodology, angular threshold, and streamline propagation method can substantially impact connectome reconstruction accuracy. Hence, careful application of tractography is necessary to reconstruct accurate connectomes. Improvements in diffusion MRI acquisition techniques will not necessarily overcome current tractography limitations without accompanying modeling and algorithmic advances.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tabinda Sarwar
- School of Computing Technologies, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
| | - Kotagiri Ramamohanarao
- Department of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
| | - Andrew Zalesky
- Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
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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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Morales H. Current and Future Challenges of Functional MRI and Diffusion Tractography in the Surgical Setting: From Eloquent Brain Mapping to Neural Plasticity. Semin Ultrasound CT MR 2021; 42:474-489. [PMID: 34537116 DOI: 10.1053/j.sult.2021.07.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
Abstract
Decades ago, Spetzler (1986) and Sawaya (1998) provided a rough brain segmentation of the eloquent areas of the brain, aimed to help surgical decisions in cases of vascular malformations and tumors, respectively. Currently in clinical use, their criteria are in need of revision. Defining functions (eg, sensorimotor, language and visual) that should be preserved during surgery seems a straightforward task. In practice, locating the specific areas that could cause a permanent vs transient deficit is not an easy task. This is particularly true for the associative cortex and cognitive domains such as language. The old model, with Broca's and Wernicke's areas at the forefront, has been superseded by a dual-stream model of parallel language processing; named ventral and dorsal pathways. This complicated network of cortical hubs and subcortical white matter pathways needing preservation during surgery is a work in progress. Preserving not only cortical regions but most importantly preserving the connections, or white matter fiber bundles, of core regions in the brain is the new paradigm. For instance, the arcuate fascicululs and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus are key components of the dorsal and ventral language pathways, respectively; and their damage result in permanent language deficits. Interestedly, the damage of the temporal portions of these bundles -where there is a crossroad with other multiple bundles-, appears to be more important (permanent) than the damage of the frontal portions - where plasticity and contralateral activation could help. Although intraoperative direct cortical and subcortical stimulation have contributed largely, advanced MR techniques such as functional MRI (fMRI) and diffusion tractography (DT), are at the epi-center of our current understanding. Nevertheless, these techniques posse important challenges: such as neurovascular uncoupling or venous bias on fMRI; and appropriate anatomical validation or accurate representation of crossing fibers on DT. These limitations should be well understood and taken into account in clinical practice. Unifying multidisciplinary research and clinical efforts is desirable, so these techniques could contribute more efficiently not only to locate eloquent areas but to improve outcomes and our understanding of neural plasticity. Finally, although there are constant anatomical and functional regions at the individual level, there is a known variability at the inter-individual level. This concept should strengthen the importance of a personalized approach when evaluating these regions on fMRI and DT. It should strengthen the importance of personalized treatments as well, aimed to meet tailored needs and expectations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Humberto Morales
- Section of Neuroradiology, University of Cincinnati Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH.
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17
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Ferreira F, Akram H, Ashburner J, Zrinzo L, Zhang H, Lambert C. Ventralis intermedius nucleus anatomical variability assessment by MRI structural connectivity. Neuroimage 2021; 238:118231. [PMID: 34089871 PMCID: PMC8960999 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118231] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/15/2020] [Revised: 05/14/2021] [Accepted: 06/01/2021] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
The ventralis intermedius nucleus (Vim) is centrally placed in the dentato-thalamo-cortical pathway (DTCp) and is a key surgical target in the treatment of severe medically refractory tremor. It is not visible on conventional MRI sequences; consequently, stereotactic targeting currently relies on atlas-based coordinates. This fails to capture individual anatomical variability, which may lead to poor long-term clinical efficacy. Probabilistic tractography, combined with known anatomical connectivity, enables localisation of thalamic nuclei at an individual subject level. There are, however, a number of confounds associated with this technique that may influence results. Here we focused on an established method, using probabilistic tractography to reconstruct the DTCp, to identify the connectivity-defined Vim (cd-Vim) in vivo. Using 100 healthy individuals from the Human Connectome Project, our aim was to quantify cd-Vim variability across this population, measure the discrepancy with atlas-defined Vim (ad-Vim), and assess the influence of potential methodological confounds. We found no significant effect of any of the confounds. The mean cd-Vim coordinate was located within 1.88 mm (left) and 2.12 mm (right) of the average midpoint and 3.98 mm (left) and 5.41 mm (right) from the ad-Vim coordinates. cd-Vim location was more variable on the right, which reflects hemispheric asymmetries in the probabilistic DTC reconstructed. The method was reproducible, with no significant cd-Vim location differences in a separate test-retest cohort. The superior cerebellar peduncle was identified as a potential source of artificial variance. This work demonstrates significant individual anatomical variability of the cd-Vim that atlas-based coordinate targeting fails to capture. This variability was not related to any methodological confound tested. Lateralisation of cerebellar functions, such as speech, may contribute to the observed asymmetry. Tractography-based methods seem sensitive to individual anatomical variability that is missed by conventional neurosurgical targeting; these findings may form the basis for translational tools to improve efficacy and reduce side-effects of thalamic surgery for tremor.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francisca Ferreira
- EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent, Integrated Imaging in Healthcare (i4health), University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom; Functional Neurosurgery Unit, Department of Clinical and Motor Neurosciences, UCL Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, WC1N 3BG London, United Kingdom; Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom.
| | - Harith Akram
- Functional Neurosurgery Unit, Department of Clinical and Motor Neurosciences, UCL Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, WC1N 3BG London, United Kingdom
| | - John Ashburner
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom
| | - Ludvic Zrinzo
- Functional Neurosurgery Unit, Department of Clinical and Motor Neurosciences, UCL Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, WC1N 3BG London, United Kingdom
| | - Hui Zhang
- EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent, Integrated Imaging in Healthcare (i4health), University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom; Department of Computer Science and Centre for Medical Image Computing, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom
| | - Christian Lambert
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom
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18
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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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19
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Albers KJ, Ambrosen KS, Liptrot MG, Dyrby TB, Schmidt MN, Mørup M. Using connectomics for predictive assessment of brain parcellations. Neuroimage 2021; 238:118170. [PMID: 34087365 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118170] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/05/2021] [Revised: 04/19/2021] [Accepted: 05/10/2021] [Indexed: 12/29/2022] Open
Abstract
The organization of the human brain remains elusive, yet is of great importance to the mechanisms of integrative brain function. At the macroscale, its structural and functional interpretation is conventionally assessed at the level of cortical units. However, the definition and validation of such cortical parcellations are problematic due to the absence of a true gold standard. We propose a framework for quantitative evaluation of brain parcellations via statistical prediction of connectomics data. Specifically, we evaluate the extent in which the network representation at the level of cortical units (defined as parcels) accounts for high-resolution brain connectivity. Herein, we assess the pertinence and comparative ranking of ten existing parcellation atlases to account for functional (FC) and structural connectivity (SC) data based on data from the Human Connectome Project (HCP), and compare them to data-driven as well as spatially-homogeneous geometric parcellations including geodesic parcellations with similar size distributions as the atlases. We find substantial discrepancy in parcellation structures that well characterize FC and SC and differences in what well represents an individual's functional connectome when compared against the FC structure that is preserved across individuals. Surprisingly, simple spatial homogenous parcellations generally provide good representations of both FC and SC, but are inferior when their within-parcellation distribution of individual parcel sizes is matched to that of a valid atlas. This suggests that the choice of fine grained and coarse representations used by existing atlases are important. However, we find that resolution is more critical than the exact border location of parcels.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kristoffer J Albers
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Richard Petersens Plads, Building 324, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Karen S Ambrosen
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Richard Petersens Plads, Building 324, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark; Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance,Centre for Functional and Diagnostic Imaging and Research, Copenhagen University Hospital Amager and Hvidovre, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Matthew G Liptrot
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Richard Petersens Plads, Building 324, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Tim B Dyrby
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Richard Petersens Plads, Building 324, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark; Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance,Centre for Functional and Diagnostic Imaging and Research, Copenhagen University Hospital Amager and Hvidovre, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Mikkel N Schmidt
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Richard Petersens Plads, Building 324, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Morten Mørup
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Richard Petersens Plads, Building 324, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark.
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20
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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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21
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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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