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Mu J, Wu L, Wang C, Dun W, Hong Z, Feng X, Zhang M, Liu J. Individual differences of white matter characteristic along the anterior insula-based fiber tract circuit for pain empathy in healthy women and women with primary dysmenorrhea. Neuroimage 2024; 293:120624. [PMID: 38657745 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2024.120624] [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: 12/26/2023] [Revised: 04/19/2024] [Accepted: 04/22/2024] [Indexed: 04/26/2024] Open
Abstract
Pain empathy, defined as the ability of one person to understand another person's pain, shows large individual variations. The anterior insula is the core region of the pain empathy network. However, the relationship between white matter (WM) properties of the fiber tracts connecting the anterior insula with other cortical regions and an individual's ability to modulate pain empathy remains largely unclear. In this study, we outline an automatic seed-based fiber streamline (sFS) analysis method and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) to predict the levels of pain empathy in healthy women and women with primary dysmenorrhoea (PDM). Using the sFS method, the anterior insula-based fiber tract network was divided into five fiber cluster groups. In healthy women, interindividual differences in pain empathy were predicted only by the WM properties of the five fiber cluster groups, suggesting that interindividual differences in pain empathy may rely on the connectivity of the anterior insula-based fiber tract network. In women with PDM, pain empathy could be predicted by a single cluster group. The mean WM properties along the anterior insular-rostroventral area of the inferior parietal lobule further mediated the effect of pain on empathy in patients with PDM. Our results suggest that chronic periodic pain may lead to maladaptive plastic changes, which could further impair empathy by making women with PDM feel more pain when they see other people experiencing pain. Our study also addresses an important gap in the analysis of the microstructural characteristics of seed-based fiber tract network.
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Affiliation(s)
- Junya Mu
- Department of Medical Imaging, First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, PR China
| | - Leiming Wu
- Center for Brain Imaging, School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi'an 710126, PR China; Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging, Ministry of Education, Xi'an 710126, PR China
| | - Chenxi Wang
- Center for Brain Imaging, School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi'an 710126, PR China; Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging, Ministry of Education, Xi'an 710126, PR China
| | - Wanghuan Dun
- Department of Medical Imaging, First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, PR China
| | - Zilong Hong
- Center for Brain Imaging, School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi'an 710126, PR China; Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging, Ministry of Education, Xi'an 710126, PR China
| | - Xinyue Feng
- Center for Brain Imaging, School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi'an 710126, PR China; Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging, Ministry of Education, Xi'an 710126, PR China
| | - Ming Zhang
- Department of Medical Imaging, First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, PR China.
| | - Jixin Liu
- Department of Medical Imaging, First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, PR China; Center for Brain Imaging, School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi'an 710126, PR China; Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging, Ministry of Education, Xi'an 710126, PR China.
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Kebiri H, Gholipour A, Bach Cuadra M, Karimi D. Direct segmentation of brain white matter tracts in diffusion MRI. ARXIV 2023:arXiv:2307.02223v1. [PMID: 37461410 PMCID: PMC10350097] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/23/2023]
Abstract
The brain white matter consists of a set of tracts that connect distinct regions of the brain. Segmentation of these tracts is often needed for clinical and research studies. Diffusion-weighted MRI offers unique contrast to delineate these tracts. However, existing segmentation methods rely on intermediate computations such as tractography or estimation of fiber orientation density. These intermediate computations, in turn, entail complex computations that can result in unnecessary errors. Moreover, these intermediate computations often require dense multi-shell measurements that are unavailable in many clinical and research applications. As a result, current methods suffer from low accuracy and poor generalizability. Here, we propose a new deep learning method that segments these tracts directly from the diffusion MRI data, thereby sidestepping the intermediate computation errors. Our experiments show that this method can achieve segmentation accuracy that is on par with the state of the art methods (mean Dice Similarity Coefficient of 0.826). Compared with the state of the art, our method offers far superior generalizability to undersampled data that are typical of clinical studies and to data obtained with different acquisition protocols. Moreover, we propose a new method for detecting inaccurate segmentations and show that it is more accurate than standard methods that are based on estimation uncertainty quantification. The new methods can serve many critically important clinical and scientific applications that require accurate and reliable non-invasive segmentation of white matter tracts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hamza Kebiri
- Computational Radiology Laboratory (CRL), Department of Radiology, Boston Children's Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, USA
- Department of Radiology, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and University of Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Ali Gholipour
- Computational Radiology Laboratory (CRL), Department of Radiology, Boston Children's Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, USA
| | - Meritxell Bach Cuadra
- Computational Radiology Laboratory (CRL), Department of Radiology, Boston Children's Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, USA
- Department of Radiology, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and University of Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Davood Karimi
- Computational Radiology Laboratory (CRL), Department of Radiology, Boston Children's Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, USA
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3
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Chen Y, Zhang C, Xue T, Song Y, Makris N, Rathi Y, Cai W, Zhang F, O'Donnell LJ. Deep fiber clustering: Anatomically informed fiber clustering with self-supervised deep learning for fast and effective tractography parcellation. Neuroimage 2023; 273:120086. [PMID: 37019346 PMCID: PMC10958986 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120086] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/13/2023] [Accepted: 04/02/2023] [Indexed: 04/05/2023] Open
Abstract
White matter fiber clustering is an important strategy for white matter parcellation, which enables quantitative analysis of brain connections in health and disease. In combination with expert neuroanatomical labeling, data-driven white matter fiber clustering is a powerful tool for creating atlases that can model white matter anatomy across individuals. While widely used fiber clustering approaches have shown good performance using classical unsupervised machine learning techniques, recent advances in deep learning reveal a promising direction toward fast and effective fiber clustering. In this work, we propose a novel deep learning framework for white matter fiber clustering, Deep Fiber Clustering (DFC), which solves the unsupervised clustering problem as a self-supervised learning task with a domain-specific pretext task to predict pairwise fiber distances. This process learns a high-dimensional embedding feature representation for each fiber, regardless of the order of fiber points reconstructed during tractography. We design a novel network architecture that represents input fibers as point clouds and allows the incorporation of additional sources of input information from gray matter parcellation. Thus, DFC makes use of combined information about white matter fiber geometry and gray matter anatomy to improve the anatomical coherence of fiber clusters. In addition, DFC conducts outlier removal naturally by rejecting fibers with low cluster assignment probability. We evaluate DFC on three independently acquired cohorts, including data from 220 individuals across genders, ages (young and elderly adults), and different health conditions (healthy control and multiple neuropsychiatric disorders). We compare DFC to several state-of-the-art white matter fiber clustering algorithms. Experimental results demonstrate superior performance of DFC in terms of cluster compactness, generalization ability, anatomical coherence, and computational efficiency.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuqian Chen
- Harvard Medical School, MA, USA; The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | | | - Tengfei Xue
- Harvard Medical School, MA, USA; The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Yang Song
- The University of New South Wales, NSW, Australia
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Superficial white matter bundle atlas based on hierarchical fiber clustering over probabilistic tractography data. Neuroimage 2022; 262:119550. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119550] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2021] [Revised: 08/01/2022] [Accepted: 08/05/2022] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
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Zhang F, Daducci A, He Y, Schiavi S, Seguin C, Smith RE, Yeh CH, Zhao T, O'Donnell LJ. Quantitative mapping of the brain's structural connectivity using diffusion MRI tractography: A review. Neuroimage 2022; 249:118870. [PMID: 34979249 PMCID: PMC9257891 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118870] [Citation(s) in RCA: 78] [Impact Index Per Article: 39.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/15/2021] [Revised: 12/03/2021] [Accepted: 12/31/2021] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) tractography is an advanced imaging technique that enables in vivo reconstruction of the brain's white matter connections at macro scale. It provides an important tool for quantitative mapping of the brain's structural connectivity using measures of connectivity or tissue microstructure. Over the last two decades, the study of brain connectivity using dMRI tractography has played a prominent role in the neuroimaging research landscape. In this paper, we provide a high-level overview of how tractography is used to enable quantitative analysis of the brain's structural connectivity in health and disease. We focus on two types of quantitative analyses of tractography, including: 1) tract-specific analysis that refers to research that is typically hypothesis-driven and studies particular anatomical fiber tracts, and 2) connectome-based analysis that refers to research that is more data-driven and generally studies the structural connectivity of the entire brain. We first provide a review of methodology involved in three main processing steps that are common across most approaches for quantitative analysis of tractography, including methods for tractography correction, segmentation and quantification. For each step, we aim to describe methodological choices, their popularity, and potential pros and cons. We then review studies that have used quantitative tractography approaches to study the brain's white matter, focusing on applications in neurodevelopment, aging, neurological disorders, mental disorders, and neurosurgery. We conclude that, while there have been considerable advancements in methodological technologies and breadth of applications, there nevertheless remains no consensus about the "best" methodology in quantitative analysis of tractography, and researchers should remain cautious when interpreting results in research and clinical applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fan Zhang
- Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA.
| | | | - Yong He
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China; Beijing Key Laboratory of Brain Imaging and Connectomics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China; IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China; Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China
| | - Simona Schiavi
- Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
| | - Caio Seguin
- Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, Melbourne, Australia; The University of Sydney, School of Biomedical Engineering, Sydney, Australia
| | - Robert E Smith
- The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Melbourne, Australia; Florey Department of Neuroscience and Mental Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Chun-Hung Yeh
- Institute for Radiological Research, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan; Department of Psychiatry, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital at Linkou, Taoyuan, Taiwan
| | - Tengda Zhao
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China; Beijing Key Laboratory of Brain Imaging and Connectomics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China; IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
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6
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Synergistic Role of Quantitative Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Predicting Outcomes After Traumatic Brain Injury. J Comput Assist Tomogr 2022; 46:236-243. [PMID: 35297580 PMCID: PMC8974470 DOI: 10.1097/rct.0000000000001284] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/03/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE This study aimed to assess if quantitative diffusion magnetic resonance imaging analysis would improve prognostication of individual patients with severe traumatic brain injury. METHODS We analyzed images of 30 healthy controls to extract normal fractional anisotropy ranges along 18 white-matter tracts. Then, we analyzed images of 33 patients, compared their fractional anisotropy values with normal ranges extracted from controls, and computed severity of injury to white-matter tracts. We also asked 2 neuroradiologists to rate severity of injury to different brain regions on fluid-attenuated inversion recovery and susceptibility-weighted imaging. Finally, we built 3 models: (1) fed with neuroradiologists' ratings, (2) fed with white-matter injury measures, and (3) fed with both input types. RESULTS The 3 models respectively predicted survival at 1 year with accuracies of 70%, 73%, and 88%. The accuracy with both input types was significantly better (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Quantifying severity of injury to white-matter tracts complements qualitative imaging findings and improves outcome prediction in severe traumatic brain injury.
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La Corte E, Eldahaby D, Greco E, Aquino D, Bertolini G, Levi V, Ottenhausen M, Demichelis G, Romito LM, Acerbi F, Broggi M, Schiariti MP, Ferroli P, Bruzzone MG, Serrao G. The Frontal Aslant Tract: A Systematic Review for Neurosurgical Applications. Front Neurol 2021; 12:641586. [PMID: 33732210 PMCID: PMC7959833 DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2021.641586] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/14/2020] [Accepted: 01/11/2021] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
The frontal aslant tract (FAT) is a recently identified white matter tract connecting the supplementary motor complex and lateral superior frontal gyrus to the inferior frontal gyrus. Advancements in neuroimaging and refinements to anatomical dissection techniques of the human brain white matter contributed to the recent description of the FAT anatomical and functional connectivity and its role in the pathogenesis of several neurological, psychiatric, and neurosurgical disorders. Through the application of diffusion tractography and intraoperative electrical brain stimulation, the FAT was shown to have a role in speech and language functions (verbal fluency, initiation and inhibition of speech, sentence production, and lexical decision), working memory, visual–motor activities, orofacial movements, social community tasks, attention, and music processing. Microstructural alterations of the FAT have also been associated with neurological disorders, such as primary progressive aphasia, post-stroke aphasia, stuttering, Foix–Chavany–Marie syndrome, social communication deficit in autism spectrum disorders, and attention–deficit hyperactivity disorder. We provide a systematic review of the current literature about the FAT anatomical connectivity and functional roles. Specifically, the aim of the present study relies on providing an overview for practical neurosurgical applications for the pre-operative, intra-operative, and post-operative assessment of patients with brain tumors located around and within the FAT. Moreover, some useful tests are suggested for the neurosurgical evaluation of FAT integrity to plan a safer surgery and to reduce post-operative deficits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emanuele La Corte
- Department of Neurosurgery, Fondazione IRCCS (Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico) Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy
| | - Daniela Eldahaby
- San Paolo Medical School, Department of Health Sciences, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy
| | - Elena Greco
- San Paolo Medical School, Department of Health Sciences, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy
| | - Domenico Aquino
- Neuroradiology Department, Fondazione IRCCS (Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico) Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy
| | - Giacomo Bertolini
- Department of Neurosurgery, Fondazione IRCCS (Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico) Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy
| | - Vincenzo Levi
- Department of Neurosurgery, Fondazione IRCCS (Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico) Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy
| | - Malte Ottenhausen
- Department of Neurological Surgery, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany
| | - Greta Demichelis
- Neuroradiology Department, Fondazione IRCCS (Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico) Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy
| | - Luigi Michele Romito
- Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Unit, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Fondazione IRCCS (Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico) Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy
| | - Francesco Acerbi
- Department of Neurosurgery, Fondazione IRCCS (Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico) Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy
| | - Morgan Broggi
- Department of Neurosurgery, Fondazione IRCCS (Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico) Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy
| | - Marco Paolo Schiariti
- Department of Neurosurgery, Fondazione IRCCS (Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico) Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy
| | - Paolo Ferroli
- Department of Neurosurgery, Fondazione IRCCS (Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico) Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy
| | - Maria Grazia Bruzzone
- Neuroradiology Department, Fondazione IRCCS (Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico) Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy
| | - Graziano Serrao
- San Paolo Medical School, Department of Health Sciences, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy.,Department of Health Sciences, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy
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Weninger L, Na CH, Jütten K, Merhof D. Analyzing the effects of free water modeling by deep learning on diffusion MRI structural connectivity estimates in glioma patients. PLoS One 2020; 15:e0239475. [PMID: 32976545 PMCID: PMC7518620 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0239475] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/23/2020] [Accepted: 09/04/2020] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Diffusion-weighted MRI makes it possible to quantify subvoxel brain microstructure and to reconstruct white matter fiber trajectories with which structural connectomes can be created. However, at the border between cerebrospinal fluid and white matter, or in the presence of edema, the obtained MRI signal originates from both the cerebrospinal fluid as well as from the white matter partial volume. Diffusion tractography can be strongly influenced by these free water partial volume effects. Thus, including a free water model can improve diffusion tractography in glioma patients. Here, we analyze how including a free water model influences structural connectivity estimates in healthy subjects as well as in brain tumor patients. During a clinical study, we acquired diffusion MRI data of 35 glioma patients and 28 age- and sex-matched controls, on which we applied an open-source deep learning based free water model. We performed deterministic as well as probabilistic tractography before and after free water modeling, and utilized the tractograms to create structural connectomes. Finally, we performed a quantitative analysis of the connectivity matrices. In our experiments, the number of tracked diffusion streamlines increased by 13% for high grade glioma patients, 9.25% for low grade glioma, and 7.65% for healthy controls. Intra-subject similarity of hemispheres increased significantly for the patient as well as for the control group, with larger effects observed in the patient group. Furthermore, inter-subject differences in connectivity between brain tumor patients and healthy subjects were reduced when including free water modeling. Our results indicate that free water modeling increases the similarity of connectivity matrices in brain tumor patients, while the observed effects are less pronounced in healthy subjects. As the similarity between brain tumor patients and healthy controls also increased, connectivity changes in brain tumor patients may have been overestimated in studies that did not perform free water modeling.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leon Weninger
- Imaging & Computer Vision, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
| | - Chuh-Hyoun Na
- Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany
| | - Kerstin Jütten
- Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany
| | - Dorit Merhof
- Imaging & Computer Vision, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
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Bertò G, Bullock D, Astolfi P, Hayashi S, Zigiotto L, Annicchiarico L, Corsini F, De Benedictis A, Sarubbo S, Pestilli F, Avesani P, Olivetti E. Classifyber, a robust streamline-based linear classifier for white matter bundle segmentation. Neuroimage 2020; 224:117402. [PMID: 32979520 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117402] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/24/2020] [Revised: 09/12/2020] [Accepted: 09/18/2020] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Virtual delineation of white matter bundles in the human brain is of paramount importance for multiple applications, such as pre-surgical planning and connectomics. A substantial body of literature is related to methods that automatically segment bundles from diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging (dMRI) data indirectly, by exploiting either the idea of connectivity between regions or the geometry of fiber paths obtained with tractography techniques, or, directly, through the information in volumetric data. Despite the remarkable improvement in automatic segmentation methods over the years, their segmentation quality is not yet satisfactory, especially when dealing with datasets with very diverse characteristics, such as different tracking methods, bundle sizes or data quality. In this work, we propose a novel, supervised streamline-based segmentation method, called Classifyber, which combines information from atlases, connectivity patterns, and the geometry of fiber paths into a simple linear model. With a wide range of experiments on multiple datasets that span from research to clinical domains, we show that Classifyber substantially improves the quality of segmentation as compared to other state-of-the-art methods and, more importantly, that it is robust across very diverse settings. We provide an implementation of the proposed method as open source code, as well as web service.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giulia Bertò
- NeuroInformatics Laboratory (NILab), Bruno Kessler Foundation (FBK), Trento, Italy; Center for Mind and Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Italy
| | - Daniel Bullock
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
| | - Pietro Astolfi
- NeuroInformatics Laboratory (NILab), Bruno Kessler Foundation (FBK), Trento, Italy; Center for Mind and Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Italy; PAVIS, Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Genova, Italy
| | - Soichi Hayashi
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
| | - Luca Zigiotto
- Division of Neurosurgery, Structural and Functional Connectivity Lab, S. Chiara Hospital, Trento, Italy
| | - Luciano Annicchiarico
- Division of Neurosurgery, Structural and Functional Connectivity Lab, S. Chiara Hospital, Trento, Italy
| | - Francesco Corsini
- Division of Neurosurgery, Structural and Functional Connectivity Lab, S. Chiara Hospital, Trento, Italy
| | - Alessandro De Benedictis
- Neurosurgery Unit, Department of Neuroscience, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital IRCCS, Rome, Italy
| | - Silvio Sarubbo
- Division of Neurosurgery, Structural and Functional Connectivity Lab, S. Chiara Hospital, Trento, Italy
| | - Franco Pestilli
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
| | - Paolo Avesani
- NeuroInformatics Laboratory (NILab), Bruno Kessler Foundation (FBK), Trento, Italy; Center for Mind and Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Italy
| | - Emanuele Olivetti
- NeuroInformatics Laboratory (NILab), Bruno Kessler Foundation (FBK), Trento, Italy; Center for Mind and Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Italy.
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Registration-free analysis of diffusion MRI tractography data across subjects through the human lifespan. Neuroimage 2020; 214:116703. [PMID: 32151759 PMCID: PMC8482444 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116703] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2019] [Revised: 01/21/2020] [Accepted: 03/02/2020] [Indexed: 02/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Diffusion MRI tractography produces massive sets of streamlines that need to be clustered into anatomically meaningful white-matter bundles. Conventional clustering techniques group streamlines based on their proximity in Euclidean space. We have developed AnatomiCuts, an unsupervised method for clustering tractography streamlines based on their neighboring anatomical structures, rather than their coordinates in Euclidean space. In this work, we show that the anatomical similarity metric used in AnatomiCuts can be extended to find corresponding clusters across subjects and across hemispheres, without inter-subject or inter-hemispheric registration. Our proposed approach enables group-wise tract cluster analysis, as well as studies of hemispheric asymmetry. We evaluate our approach on data from the pilot MGH-Harvard-USC Lifespan Human Connectome project, showing improved correspondence in tract clusters across 184 subjects aged 8-90. Our method shows up to 38% improvement in the overlap of corresponding clusters when comparing subjects with large age differences. The techniques presented here do not require registration to a template and can thus be applied to populations with large inter-subject variability, e.g., due to brain development, aging, or neurological disorders.
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