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Takemura H, Kruper JA, Miyata T, Rokem A. Tractometry of Human Visual White Matter Pathways in Health and Disease. Magn Reson Med Sci 2024; 23:316-340. [PMID: 38866532 PMCID: PMC11234945 DOI: 10.2463/mrms.rev.2024-0007] [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] [Indexed: 06/14/2024] Open
Abstract
Diffusion-weighted MRI (dMRI) provides a unique non-invasive view of human brain tissue properties. The present review article focuses on tractometry analysis methods that use dMRI to assess the properties of brain tissue within the long-range connections comprising brain networks. We focus specifically on the major white matter tracts that convey visual information. These connections are particularly important because vision provides rich information from the environment that supports a large range of daily life activities. Many of the diseases of the visual system are associated with advanced aging, and tractometry of the visual system is particularly important in the modern aging society. We provide an overview of the tractometry analysis pipeline, which includes a primer on dMRI data acquisition, voxelwise model fitting, tractography, recognition of white matter tracts, and calculation of tract tissue property profiles. We then review dMRI-based methods for analyzing visual white matter tracts: the optic nerve, optic tract, optic radiation, forceps major, and vertical occipital fasciculus. For each tract, we review background anatomical knowledge together with recent findings in tractometry studies on these tracts and their properties in relation to visual function and disease. Overall, we find that measurements of the brain's visual white matter are sensitive to a range of disorders and correlate with perceptual abilities. We highlight new and promising analysis methods, as well as some of the current barriers to progress toward integration of these methods into clinical practice. These barriers, such as variability in measurements between protocols and instruments, are targets for future development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hiromasa Takemura
- Division of Sensory and Cognitive Brain Mapping, Department of System Neuroscience, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Aichi, Japan
- Graduate Institute for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI, Hayama, Kanagawa, Japan
- Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), Advanced ICT Research Institute, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Suita, Osaka, Japan
| | - John A Kruper
- Department of Psychology and eScience Institute, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Toshikazu Miyata
- Division of Sensory and Cognitive Brain Mapping, Department of System Neuroscience, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Aichi, Japan
- Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), Advanced ICT Research Institute, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Suita, Osaka, Japan
| | - Ariel Rokem
- Department of Psychology and eScience Institute, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
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2
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Uesaki M, Furlan M, Smith AT, Takemura H. White matter tracts adjacent to the human cingulate sulcus visual area (CSv). PLoS One 2024; 19:e0300575. [PMID: 38578743 PMCID: PMC10997140 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0300575] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2023] [Accepted: 02/29/2024] [Indexed: 04/07/2024] Open
Abstract
Human cingulate sulcus visual area (CSv) was first identified as an area that responds selectively to visual stimulation indicative of self-motion. It was later shown that the area is also sensitive to vestibular stimulation as well as to bodily motion compatible with locomotion. Understanding the anatomical connections of CSv will shed light on how CSv interacts with other parts of the brain to perform information processing related to self-motion and navigation. A previous neuroimaging study (Smith et al. 2018, Cerebral Cortex, 28, 3685-3596) used diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) to examine the structural connectivity of CSv, and demonstrated connections between CSv and the motor and sensorimotor areas in the anterior and posterior cingulate sulcus. The present study aimed to complement this work by investigating the relationship between CSv and adjacent major white matter tracts, and to map CSv's structural connectivity onto known white matter tracts. By re-analysing the dataset from Smith et al. (2018), we identified bundles of fibres (i.e. streamlines) from the whole-brain tractography that terminate near CSv. We then assessed to which white matter tracts those streamlines may belong based on previously established anatomical prescriptions. We found that a significant number of CSv streamlines can be categorised as part of the dorsalmost branch of the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF I) and the cingulum. Given current thinking about the functions of these white matter tracts, our results support the proposition that CSv provides an interface between sensory and motor systems in the context of self-motion.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maiko Uesaki
- Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), Advanced ICT Research Institute, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Suita, Osaka, Japan
- Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan
- Open Innovation & Collaboration Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University, Ibaraki, Osaka, Japan
| | - Michele Furlan
- Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA), Trieste, Trieste, Italy
| | - Andrew T. Smith
- Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey, United Kingdom
| | - Hiromasa Takemura
- Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), Advanced ICT Research Institute, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Suita, Osaka, Japan
- Division of Sensory and Cognitive Brain Mapping, Department of System Neuroscience, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Aichi, Japan
- Graduate Institute for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI, Hayama, Kanagawa, Japan
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Gabusi I, Battocchio M, Bosticardo S, Schiavi S, Daducci A. Blurred streamlines: A novel representation to reduce redundancy in tractography. Med Image Anal 2024; 93:103101. [PMID: 38325156 DOI: 10.1016/j.media.2024.103101] [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: 10/20/2023] [Revised: 01/23/2024] [Accepted: 01/30/2024] [Indexed: 02/09/2024]
Abstract
Tractography is a powerful tool to study brain connectivity in vivo, but it is well known to suffer from an intrinsic trade-off between sensitivity and specificity. A critical - but usually underrated - parameter to choose that can heavily impact the quality of the estimates is the number of streamlines to be reconstructed for a given data set. In fact, sensitivity can be improved by generating more and more streamlines, as all real anatomical connections are likely reconstructed, but lots of false positives are inevitably introduced, too. Consequently, so-called tractography filtering techniques have become increasingly popular to get rid of these false positives and improve specificity. However, increasing number of streamlines introduces redundancy in tractography reconstructions, which may negatively impact the performance of filtering algorithms, especially those based on linear formulations. To address this problem, we introduce a novel streamlines representation, called "blurred streamlines", which drastically reduces the redundancy among streamlines by (i) clustering similar trajectories and (ii) spatially blurring the corresponding signal contributions. We tested the effectiveness of the blurred streamlines both on synthetic and in vivo data. Our results clearly show that this new representation is as accurate as state-of-the-art methods despite using only 5% of the input streamlines, thus significantly decreasing the computational complexity of filtering algorithms as well as storage requirements of the resulting reconstructions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ilaria Gabusi
- 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, Québec, Canada
| | - 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
| | - Simona Schiavi
- Diffusion Imaging and Connectivity Estimation (DICE) Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy; ASG Superconductors S.p.A., Genova, Italy
| | - Alessandro Daducci
- Diffusion Imaging and Connectivity Estimation (DICE) Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
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Astolfi P, Verhagen R, Petit L, Olivetti E, Sarubbo S, Masci J, Boscaini D, Avesani P. Supervised tractogram filtering using Geometric Deep Learning. Med Image Anal 2023; 90:102893. [PMID: 37741032 DOI: 10.1016/j.media.2023.102893] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2022] [Revised: 04/18/2023] [Accepted: 07/07/2023] [Indexed: 09/25/2023]
Abstract
A tractogram is a virtual representation of the brain white matter. It is composed of millions of virtual fibers, encoded as 3D polylines, which approximate the white matter axonal pathways. To date, tractograms are the most accurate white matter representation and thus are used for tasks like presurgical planning and investigations of neuroplasticity, brain disorders, or brain networks. However, it is a well-known issue that a large portion of tractogram fibers is not anatomically plausible and can be considered artifacts of the tracking procedure. With Verifyber, we tackle the problem of filtering out such non-plausible fibers using a novel fully-supervised learning approach. Differently from other approaches based on signal reconstruction and/or brain topology regularization, we guide our method with the existing anatomical knowledge of the white matter. Using tractograms annotated according to anatomical principles, we train our model, Verifyber, to classify fibers as either anatomically plausible or non-plausible. The proposed Verifyber model is an original Geometric Deep Learning method that can deal with variable size fibers, while being invariant to fiber orientation. Our model considers each fiber as a graph of points, and by learning features of the edges between consecutive points via the proposed sequence Edge Convolution, it can capture the underlying anatomical properties. The output filtering results highly accurate and robust across an extensive set of experiments, and fast; with a 12GB GPU, filtering a tractogram of 1M fibers requires less than a minute.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pietro Astolfi
- NILab, TeV, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy; PAVIS, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Geonva, Italy; Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CiMeC), University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy
| | | | - Laurent Petit
- GIN, IMN, CNRS, CEA, Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France
| | - Emanuele Olivetti
- NILab, TeV, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy; Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CiMeC), University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy
| | - Silvio Sarubbo
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CiMeC), University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy; Department of Neurosurgery, Azienda Provinciale per i Servizi Sanitari, "Santa Chiara" Hospital, Trento, Italy
| | | | | | - Paolo Avesani
- NILab, TeV, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy; Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CiMeC), University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy.
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Sarwar T, Ramamohanarao K, Daducci A, Schiavi S, Smith RE, Zalesky A. Evaluation of tractogram filtering methods using human-like connectome phantoms. Neuroimage 2023; 281:120376. [PMID: 37714389 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120376] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2023] [Revised: 09/03/2023] [Accepted: 09/12/2023] [Indexed: 09/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Tractography algorithms are prone to reconstructing spurious connections. The set of streamlines generated with tractography can be post-processed to retain the streamlines that are most biologically plausible. Several microstructure-informed filtering algorithms are available for this purpose, however, the comparative performance of these methods has not been extensively evaluated. In this study, we aim to evaluate streamline filtering and post-processing algorithms using simulated connectome phantoms. We first establish a framework for generating connectome phantoms featuring brain-like white matter fiber architectures. We then use our phantoms to systematically evaluate the performance of a range of streamline filtering algorithms, including SIFT, COMMIT, and LiFE. We find that all filtering methods successfully improve connectome accuracy, although filter performance depends on the complexity of the underlying white matter fiber architecture. Filtering algorithms can markedly improve tractography accuracy for simple tubular fiber bundles (F-measure deterministic- unfiltered: 0.49 and best filter: 0.72; F-measure probabilistic- unfiltered: 0.37 and best filter: 0.81), but for more complex brain-like fiber architectures, the improvement is modest (F-measure deterministic- unfiltered: 0.53 and best filter: 0.54; F-measure probabilistic- unfiltered: 0.46 and best filter: 0.50). Overall, filtering algorithms have the potential to improve the accuracy of connectome mapping pipelines, particularly for weighted connectomes and pipelines using probabilistic tractography methods. Our results highlight the need for further advances tractography and streamline filtering to improve the accuracy of connectome mapping.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tabinda Sarwar
- School of Computing Technologies, RMIT University, Victoria, 3000, Australia.
| | | | | | - Simona Schiavi
- Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, 37129, Italy
| | - Robert E Smith
- Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Heidelberg, Victoria, 3084, Australia; Florey Department of Neuroscience and Mental Health, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, 3052, Australia
| | - Andrew Zalesky
- Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 2010, Australia
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Carrozzi A, Gramegna LL, Sighinolfi G, Zoli M, Mazzatenta D, Testa C, Lodi R, Tonon C, Manners DN. Methods of diffusion MRI tractography for localization of the anterior optic pathway: A systematic review of validated methods. Neuroimage Clin 2023; 39:103494. [PMID: 37651845 PMCID: PMC10477810 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2023.103494] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/11/2023] [Revised: 06/21/2023] [Accepted: 08/07/2023] [Indexed: 09/02/2023]
Abstract
The anterior optic pathway (AOP) is a system of three structures (optic nerves, optic chiasma, and optic tracts) that convey visual stimuli from the retina to the lateral geniculate nuclei. A successful reconstruction of the AOP using tractography could be helpful in several clinical scenarios, from presurgical planning and neuronavigation of sellar and parasellar surgery to monitoring the stage of fiber degeneration both in acute (e.g., traumatic optic neuropathy) or chronic conditions that affect AOP structures (e.g., amblyopia, glaucoma, demyelinating disorders or genetic optic nerve atrophies). However, its peculiar anatomy and course, as well as its surroundings, pose a serious challenge to obtaining successful tractographic reconstructions. Several AOP tractography strategies have been adopted but no standard procedure has been agreed upon. We performed a systematic review of the literature according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) 2020 guidelines in order to find the combinations of acquisition and reconstruction parameters that have been performed previously and have provided the highest rate of successful reconstruction of the AOP, in order to promote their routine implementation in clinical practice. For this purpose, we reviewed data regarding how the process of anatomical validation of the tractographies was performed. The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions was used to assess the risk of bias and thus the study quality We identified thirty-nine studies that met our inclusion criteria, and only five were considered at low risk of bias and achieved over 80% of successful reconstructions. We found a high degree of heterogeneity in the acquisition and analysis parameters used to perform AOP tractography and different combinations of them can achieve satisfactory levels of anterior optic tractographic reconstruction both in real-life research and clinical scenarios. One thousand s/mm2 was the most frequently used b value, while both deterministic and probabilistic tractography algorithms performed morphological reconstruction of the tract satisfactorily, although probabilistic algorithms estimated a more realistic percentage of crossing fibers (45.6%) in healthy subjects. A wide heterogeneity was also found regarding the method used to assess the anatomical fidelity of the AOP reconstructions. Three main strategies can be found: direct visual direct visual assessment of the tractography superimposed to a conventional MR image, surgical evaluation, and computational methods. Because the latter is less dependent on a priori knowledge of the anatomy by the operator, computational methods of validation of the anatomy should be considered whenever possible.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alessandro Carrozzi
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences (DIBINEM), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Laura Ludovica Gramegna
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences (DIBINEM), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy; IRCCS Istituto delle Scienze Neurologiche di Bologna, Functional and Molecular Neuroimaging Unit, Bologna, Italy.
| | - Giovanni Sighinolfi
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences (DIBINEM), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Matteo Zoli
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences (DIBINEM), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy; IRCCS Istituto delle Scienze Neurologiche di Bologna, Pituitary Unit, Bologna, Italy
| | - Diego Mazzatenta
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences (DIBINEM), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy; IRCCS Istituto delle Scienze Neurologiche di Bologna, Pituitary Unit, Bologna, Italy
| | - Claudia Testa
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Raffaele Lodi
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences (DIBINEM), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy; IRCCS Istituto delle Scienze Neurologiche di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Caterina Tonon
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences (DIBINEM), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy; IRCCS Istituto delle Scienze Neurologiche di Bologna, Functional and Molecular Neuroimaging Unit, Bologna, Italy
| | - David Neil Manners
- IRCCS Istituto delle Scienze Neurologiche di Bologna, Functional and Molecular Neuroimaging Unit, Bologna, Italy; Department for Life Quality Studies (QUVI), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
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Morita T, Takemura H, Naito E. Functional and Structural Properties of Interhemispheric Interaction between Bilateral Precentral Hand Motor Regions in a Top Wheelchair Racing Paralympian. Brain Sci 2023; 13:brainsci13050715. [PMID: 37239187 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci13050715] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2023] [Revised: 04/14/2023] [Accepted: 04/23/2023] [Indexed: 05/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Long-term motor training can cause functional and structural changes in the human brain. Assessing how the training of specific movements affects specific parts of the neural circuitry is essential to understand better the underlying mechanisms of motor training-induced plasticity in the human brain. We report a single-case neuroimaging study that investigated functional and structural properties in a professional athlete of wheelchair racing. As wheelchair racing requires bilateral synchronization of upper limb movements, we hypothesized that functional and structural properties of interhemispheric interactions in the central motor system might differ between the professional athlete and controls. Functional and diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI and dMRI) data were obtained from a top Paralympian (P1) in wheelchair racing. With 23 years of wheelchair racing training starting at age eight, she holds an exceptional competitive record. Furthermore, fMRI and dMRI data were collected from three other paraplegic participants (P2-P4) with long-term wheelchair sports training other than wheelchair racing and 37 able-bodied control volunteers. Based on the fMRI data analyses, P1 showed activation in the bilateral precentral hand sections and greater functional connectivity between these sections during a right-hand unimanual task. In contrast, other paraplegic participants and controls showed activation in the contralateral hemisphere and deactivation in the ipsilateral hemisphere. Moreover, dMRI data analysis revealed that P1 exhibited significantly lower mean diffusivity along the transcallosal pathway connecting the bilateral precentral motor regions than control participants, which was not observed in the other paraplegic participants. These results suggest that long-term training with bilaterally synchronized upper-limb movements may promote bilateral recruitment of the precentral hand sections. Such recruitment may affect the structural circuitry involved in the interhemispheric interaction between the bilateral precentral regions. This study provides valuable evidence of the extreme adaptability of the human brain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tomoyo Morita
- Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), Advanced ICT Research Institute, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), 2A6 1-4 Yamadaoka, Suita 565-0871, Osaka, Japan
- Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University, 1-3 Yamadaoka, Suita 565-0871, Osaka, Japan
| | - Hiromasa Takemura
- Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), Advanced ICT Research Institute, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), 2A6 1-4 Yamadaoka, Suita 565-0871, Osaka, Japan
- Division of Sensory and Cognitive Brain Mapping, Department of System Neuroscience, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, 38 Nishigonaka Myodaiji, Okazaki 444-8585, Aichi, Japan
- The Graduate Institute for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI, Shonan Village, Hayama 240-0193, Kanagawa, Japan
| | - Eiichi Naito
- Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), Advanced ICT Research Institute, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), 2A6 1-4 Yamadaoka, Suita 565-0871, Osaka, Japan
- Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University, 1-3 Yamadaoka, Suita 565-0871, Osaka, Japan
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Lerma-Usabiaga G, Liu M, Paz-Alonso PM, Wandell BA. Reproducible Tract Profiles 2 (RTP2) suite, from diffusion MRI acquisition to clinical practice and research. Sci Rep 2023; 13:6010. [PMID: 37045891 PMCID: PMC10097625 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-32924-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/27/2022] [Accepted: 04/04/2023] [Indexed: 04/14/2023] Open
Abstract
Diffusion MRI is a complex technique, where new discoveries and implementations occur at a fast pace. The expertise needed for data analyses and accurate and reproducible results is increasingly demanding and requires multidisciplinary collaborations. In the present work we introduce Reproducible Tract Profiles 2 (RTP2), a set of flexible and automated methods to analyze anatomical MRI and diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) data for reproducible tractography. RTP2 reads structural MRI data and processes them through a succession of serialized containerized analyses. We describe the DWI algorithms used to identify white-matter tracts and their summary metrics, the flexible architecture of the platform, and the tools to programmatically access and control the computations. The combination of these three components provides an easy-to-use automatized tool developed and tested over 20 years, to obtain usable and reliable state-of-the-art diffusion metrics at the individual and group levels for basic research and clinical practice.
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Affiliation(s)
- Garikoitz Lerma-Usabiaga
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Jordan Hall Building, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA.
- BCBL, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Mikeletegi Pasealekua 69, 20009, Donostia-San Sebastián, Gipuzkoa, Spain.
- Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA.
- IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, 48013, Bilbao, Spain.
| | - Mengxing Liu
- BCBL, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Mikeletegi Pasealekua 69, 20009, Donostia-San Sebastián, Gipuzkoa, Spain
| | - Pedro M Paz-Alonso
- BCBL, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Mikeletegi Pasealekua 69, 20009, Donostia-San Sebastián, Gipuzkoa, Spain
- IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, 48013, Bilbao, Spain
| | - Brian A Wandell
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Jordan Hall Building, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA
- Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA
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Carey G, Viard R, Lopes R, Kuchcinski G, Defebvre L, Leentjens AF, Dujardin K. Anxiety in Parkinson's Disease Is Associated with Changes in Brain Structural Connectivity. JOURNAL OF PARKINSON'S DISEASE 2023; 13:989-998. [PMID: 37599537 PMCID: PMC10578283 DOI: 10.3233/jpd-230035] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/02/2023] [Indexed: 08/22/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Anxiety in Parkinson's disease (PD) has been associated with grey matter changes and functional changes in anxiety-related neuronal circuits. So far, no study has analyzed white matter (WM) changes in patients with PD and anxiety. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to identify WM changes by comparing PD patients with and without anxiety, using diffusion-tensor imaging (DTI). METHODS 108 non-demented PD patients with (n = 31) and without (n = 77) anxiety as defined by their score on the Parkinson Anxiety Scale participated. DTI was used to determine the fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) in specific tracts within anxiety-related neuronal circuits. Mean FA and MD were compared between groups and correlated with the severity of anxiety adjusted by sex, center, Hoehn & Yahr stage, levodopa equivalent daily dosage, and Hamilton depression rating scale. RESULTS Compared to patients without anxiety, PD patients with anxiety showed lower FA within the striato-orbitofrontal, striato-cingulate, cingulate-limbic, and caudate-thalamic tracts; higher FA within the striato-limbic and accumbens-thalamic tracts; higher MD within the striato-thalamic tract and lower MD within the striato-limbic tract. CONCLUSIONS Anxiety in PD is associated with microstructural alterations in anxiety-related neuronal circuits within the WM. This result reinforces the view that PD-related anxiety is linked to structural alteration within the anxiety-related brain circuits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Guillaume Carey
- Univ. Lille, Inserm, CHU Lille, U1172 - LilNCog - Lille Neuroscience & Cognition, Lille, France
- School for Mental Health and Neurosciences (MHeNS), Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
- Department of Neurology and Movement Disorders, Lille University Medical Centre, Lille, France
| | - Romain Viard
- Univ Lille, UMS 2014 – US 41 – PLBS – Plateformes Lilloises en Biologie & Santé, Lille, France
| | - Renaud Lopes
- Univ. Lille, Inserm, CHU Lille, U1172 - LilNCog - Lille Neuroscience & Cognition, Lille, France
- Univ Lille, UMS 2014 – US 41 – PLBS – Plateformes Lilloises en Biologie & Santé, Lille, France
| | - Gregory Kuchcinski
- Univ. Lille, Inserm, CHU Lille, U1172 - LilNCog - Lille Neuroscience & Cognition, Lille, France
- Univ Lille, UMS 2014 – US 41 – PLBS – Plateformes Lilloises en Biologie & Santé, Lille, France
- Department of Neuroradiology, Lille University Medical Centre, Lille, France
| | - Luc Defebvre
- Univ. Lille, Inserm, CHU Lille, U1172 - LilNCog - Lille Neuroscience & Cognition, Lille, France
- Department of Neurology and Movement Disorders, Lille University Medical Centre, Lille, France
| | - Albert F.G. Leentjens
- School for Mental Health and Neurosciences (MHeNS), Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
- Department of Psychiatry, Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, The Netherlands
| | - Kathy Dujardin
- Univ. Lille, Inserm, CHU Lille, U1172 - LilNCog - Lille Neuroscience & Cognition, Lille, France
- Department of Neurology and Movement Disorders, Lille University Medical Centre, Lille, France
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Ben-Tovim DI, Bajger M, Bui VD, Qin S, Thompson CH. Modular structures and the delivery of inpatient care in hospitals: a Network Science perspective on healthcare function and dysfunction. BMC Health Serv Res 2022; 22:1503. [PMID: 36494814 PMCID: PMC9734831 DOI: 10.1186/s12913-022-08865-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/08/2022] [Accepted: 11/21/2022] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Reinforced by the COVID-19 pandemic, the capacity of health systems to cope with increasing healthcare demands has been an abiding concern of both governments and the public. Health systems are made up from non-identical human and physical components interacting in diverse ways in varying locations. It is challenging to represent the function and dysfunction of such systems in a scientific manner. We describe a Network Science approach to that dilemma. General hospitals with large emergency caseloads are the resource intensive components of health systems. We propose that the care-delivery services in such entities are modular, and that their structure and function can be usefully analysed by contemporary Network Science. We explore that possibility in a study of Australian hospitals during 2019 and 2020. METHODS We accessed monthly snapshots of whole of hospital administrative patient level data in two general hospitals during 2019 and 2020. We represented the organisations inpatient services as network graphs and explored their graph structural characteristics using the Louvain algorithm and other methods. We related graph topological features to aspects of observable function and dysfunction in the delivery of care. RESULTS We constructed a series of whole of institution bipartite hospital graphs with clinical unit and labelled wards as nodes, and patients treated by units in particular wards as edges. Examples of the graphs are provided. Algorithmic identification of community structures confirmed the modular structure of the graphs. Their functional implications were readily identified by domain experts. Topological graph features could be related to functional and dysfunctional issues such as COVID-19 related service changes and levels of hospital congestion. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS Contemporary Network Science is one of the fastest growing areas of current scientific and technical advance. Network Science confirms the modular nature of healthcare service structures. It holds considerable promise for understanding function and dysfunction in healthcare systems, and for reconceptualising issues such as hospital capacity in new and interesting ways.
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Affiliation(s)
- David I. Ben-Tovim
- grid.1014.40000 0004 0367 2697College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University, 5042 Bedford Park, SA Australia
| | - Mariusz Bajger
- grid.1014.40000 0004 0367 2697College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, 5042 Tonsley, SA Australia
| | - Viet Duong Bui
- grid.1014.40000 0004 0367 2697College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, 5042 Tonsley, SA Australia
| | - Shaowen Qin
- grid.1014.40000 0004 0367 2697College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, 5042 Tonsley, SA Australia
| | - Campbell H. Thompson
- grid.416075.10000 0004 0367 1221Royal Adelaide Hospital, 5000 Adelaide, SA Australia
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11
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Talesh Jafadideh A, Mohammadzadeh Asl B. Structural filtering of functional data offered discriminative features for autism spectrum disorder. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0277989. [PMID: 36472989 PMCID: PMC9725140 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277989] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/29/2022] [Accepted: 11/07/2022] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
This study attempted to answer the question, "Can filtering the functional data through the frequency bands of the structural graph provide data with valuable features which are not valuable in unfiltered data"?. The valuable features discriminate between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically control (TC) groups. The resting-state fMRI data was passed through the structural graph's low, middle, and high-frequency band (LFB, MFB, and HFB) filters to answer the posed question. The structural graph was computed using the diffusion tensor imaging data. Then, the global metrics of functional graphs and metrics of functional triadic interactions were computed for filtered and unfiltered rfMRI data. Compared to TCs, ASDs had significantly higher clustering coefficients in the MFB, higher efficiencies and strengths in the MFB and HFB, and lower small-world propensity in the HFB. These results show over-connectivity, more global integration, and decreased local specialization in ASDs compared to TCs. Triadic analysis showed that the numbers of unbalanced triads were significantly lower for ASDs in the MFB. This finding may indicate the reason for restricted and repetitive behavior in ASDs. Also, in the MFB and HFB, the numbers of balanced triads and the energies of triadic interactions were significantly higher and lower for ASDs, respectively. These findings may reflect the disruption of the optimum balance between functional integration and specialization. There was no significant difference between ASDs and TCs when using the unfiltered data. All of these results demonstrated that significant differences between ASDs and TCs existed in the MFB and HFB of the structural graph when analyzing the global metrics of the functional graph and triadic interaction metrics. Also, these results demonstrated that frequency bands of the structural graph could offer significant findings which were not found in the unfiltered data. In conclusion, the results demonstrated the promising perspective of using structural graph frequency bands for attaining discriminative features and new knowledge, especially in the case of ASD.
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12
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Battocchio M, Schiavi S, Descoteaux M, Daducci A. Bundle-o-graphy: improving structural connectivity estimation with adaptive microstructure-informed tractography. Neuroimage 2022; 263:119600. [PMID: 36108565 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119600] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/27/2022] [Revised: 07/26/2022] [Accepted: 09/01/2022] [Indexed: 10/31/2022] Open
Abstract
Tractography is a powerful tool for the investigation of the complex organization of the brain in vivo, as it allows inferring the macroscopic pathways of the major fiber bundles of the white matter based on non-invasive diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging acquisitions. Despite this unique and compelling ability, some studies have exposed the poor anatomical accuracy of the reconstructions obtained with this technique and challenged its effectiveness for studying brain connectivity. In this work, we describe a novel method to readdress tractography reconstruction problem in a global manner by combining the strengths of so-called generative and discriminative strategies. Starting from an input tractogram, we parameterize the connections between brain regions following a bundle-based representation that allows to drastically reducing the number of parameters needed to model groups of fascicles. The parameters space is explored following an MCMC generative approach, while a discrimininative method is exploited to globally evaluate the set of connections which is updated according to Bayes' rule. Our results on both synthetic and real brain data show that the proposed solution, called bundle-o-graphy, allows improving the anatomical accuracy of the reconstructions while keeping the computational complexity similar to other state-of-the-art methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matteo Battocchio
- Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy; Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Laboratory (SCIL), Departement dInformatique, Universite de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.
| | - Simona Schiavi
- Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy; Department of Neuroscience, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics, Maternal and Child Health (DINOGMI), University of Genoa, Genova, Italy
| | - Maxime Descoteaux
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Laboratory (SCIL), Departement dInformatique, Universite de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
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13
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Seider NA, Adeyemo B, Miller R, Newbold DJ, Hampton JM, Scheidter KM, Rutlin J, Laumann TO, Roland JL, Montez DF, Van AN, Zheng A, Marek S, Kay BP, Bretthorst GL, Schlaggar BL, Greene DJ, Wang Y, Petersen SE, Barch DM, Gordon EM, Snyder AZ, Shimony JS, Dosenbach NUF. Accuracy and reliability of diffusion imaging models. Neuroimage 2022; 254:119138. [PMID: 35339687 PMCID: PMC9841915 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119138] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/23/2021] [Revised: 03/01/2022] [Accepted: 03/22/2022] [Indexed: 01/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Diffusion imaging aims to non-invasively characterize the anatomy and integrity of the brain's white matter fibers. We evaluated the accuracy and reliability of commonly used diffusion imaging methods as a function of data quantity and analysis method, using both simulations and highly sampled individual-specific data (927-1442 diffusion weighted images [DWIs] per individual). Diffusion imaging methods that allow for crossing fibers (FSL's BedpostX [BPX], DSI Studio's Constant Solid Angle Q-Ball Imaging [CSA-QBI], MRtrix3's Constrained Spherical Deconvolution [CSD]) estimated excess fibers when insufficient data were present and/or when the data did not match the model priors. To reduce such overfitting, we developed a novel Bayesian Multi-tensor Model-selection (BaMM) method and applied it to the popular ball-and-stick model used in BedpostX within the FSL software package. BaMM was robust to overfitting and showed high reliability and the relatively best crossing-fiber accuracy with increasing amounts of diffusion data. Thus, sufficient data and an overfitting resistant analysis method enhance precision diffusion imaging. For potential clinical applications of diffusion imaging, such as neurosurgical planning and deep brain stimulation (DBS), the quantities of data required to achieve diffusion imaging reliability are lower than those needed for functional MRI.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicole A Seider
- Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Babatunde Adeyemo
- Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Ryland Miller
- Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Dillan J Newbold
- Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Department of Neurology, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
| | - Jacqueline M Hampton
- Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Kristen M Scheidter
- Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Jerrel Rutlin
- Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Timothy O Laumann
- Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Jarod L Roland
- Department of Neurological Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110 United States of America
| | - David F Montez
- Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Andrew N Van
- Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St Louis, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Annie Zheng
- Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Scott Marek
- Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Benjamin P Kay
- Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - G Larry Bretthorst
- Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Department of Chemistry, Washington University in St Louis, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Bradley L Schlaggar
- Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD 21205, United States of America; Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, United States of America; Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, United States of America
| | - Deanna J Greene
- Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States of America
| | - Yong Wang
- Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St Louis, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Steven E Petersen
- Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St Louis, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Department of Neuroscience, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Deanna M Barch
- Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Evan M Gordon
- Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Abraham Z Snyder
- Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Joshua S Shimony
- Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Department of Neuroscience, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
| | - Nico U F Dosenbach
- Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St Louis, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Program in Occupational Therapy, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America; Department of Pediatrics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States of America
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14
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Talesh Jafadideh A, Mohammadzadeh Asl B. Rest-fMRI based comparison study between autism spectrum disorder and typically control using graph frequency bands. Comput Biol Med 2022; 146:105643. [DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2022.105643] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2022] [Revised: 04/17/2022] [Accepted: 05/14/2022] [Indexed: 01/01/2023]
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15
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Koch PJ, Girard G, Brügger J, Cadic-Melchior AG, Beanato E, Park CH, Morishita T, Wessel MJ, Pizzolato M, Canales-Rodríguez EJ, Fischi-Gomez E, Schiavi S, Daducci A, Piredda GF, Hilbert T, Kober T, Thiran JP, Hummel FC. Evaluating reproducibility and subject-specificity of microstructure-informed connectivity. Neuroimage 2022; 258:119356. [PMID: 35659995 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119356] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/21/2022] [Revised: 05/01/2022] [Accepted: 06/01/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Tractography enables identifying and evaluating the healthy and diseased brain's white matter pathways from diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging data. As previous evaluation studies have reported significant false-positive estimation biases, recent microstructure-informed tractography algorithms have been introduced to improve the trade-off between specificity and sensitivity. However, a major limitation for characterizing the performance of these techniques is the lack of ground truth brain data. In this study, we compared the performance of two relevant microstructure-informed tractography methods, SIFT2 and COMMIT, by assessing the subject specificity and reproducibility of their derived white matter pathways. Specifically, twenty healthy young subjects were scanned at eight different time points at two different sites. Subject specificity and reproducibility were evaluated using the whole-brain connectomes and a subset of 29 white matter bundles. Our results indicate that although the raw tractograms are more vulnerable to the presence of false-positive connections, they are highly reproducible, suggesting that the estimation bias is subject-specific. This high reproducibility was preserved when microstructure-informed tractography algorithms were used to filter the raw tractograms. Moreover, the resulting track-density images depicted a more uniform coverage of streamlines throughout the white matter, suggesting that these techniques could increase the biological meaning of the estimated fascicles. Notably, we observed an increased subject specificity by employing connectivity pre-processing techniques to reduce the underlaying noise and the data dimensionality (using principal component analysis), highlighting the importance of these tools for future studies. Finally, no strong bias from the scanner site or time between measurements was found. The largest intraindividual variance originated from the sole repetition of data measurements (inter-run).
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Affiliation(s)
- Philipp J Koch
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Valais), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation, 1951 Sion, Switzerland; Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, 23562 Lübeck, Germany; Center of Brain, Behavior and Metabolism (CBBM), University of Lübeck, 23562 Lübeck, Germany
| | - Gabriel Girard
- CIBM Center for Biomedical Imaging, Switzerland; Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.
| | - Julia Brügger
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Valais), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation, 1951 Sion, Switzerland
| | - Andéol G Cadic-Melchior
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Valais), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation, 1951 Sion, Switzerland
| | - Elena Beanato
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Valais), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation, 1951 Sion, Switzerland
| | - Chang-Hyun Park
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Valais), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation, 1951 Sion, Switzerland
| | - Takuya Morishita
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Valais), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation, 1951 Sion, Switzerland
| | - Maximilian J Wessel
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Valais), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation, 1951 Sion, Switzerland; Department of Neurology, Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany
| | - Marco Pizzolato
- Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland; Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | | | - Elda Fischi-Gomez
- Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland; Translational Machine Learning Lab, Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Simona Schiavi
- Diffusion Imaging and Connectivity Estimation (DICE) Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy; Department of Neuroscience, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics, Maternal and Child Health (DINOGMI), University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy
| | - Alessandro Daducci
- Diffusion Imaging and Connectivity Estimation (DICE) Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
| | - Gian Franco Piredda
- Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland; Advanced Clinical Imaging Technology, Siemens Healthcare AG, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Tom Hilbert
- Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland; Advanced Clinical Imaging Technology, Siemens Healthcare AG, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Tobias Kober
- Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland; Advanced Clinical Imaging Technology, Siemens Healthcare AG, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Jean-Philippe Thiran
- CIBM Center for Biomedical Imaging, Switzerland; Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland
| | - Friedhelm C Hummel
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Valais), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation, 1951 Sion, Switzerland; Clinical Neuroscience, University Hospital of Geneva (HUG), Geneva, Switzerland
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16
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Zuo XN. Efficiently pruning brain connectomes. NATURE COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE 2022; 2:288-289. [PMID: 38177825 DOI: 10.1038/s43588-022-00252-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/06/2024]
Affiliation(s)
- Xi-Nian Zuo
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
- Developmental Population Neuroscience Research Center, IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
- National Basic Science Data Center, Beijing, China.
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17
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Sreenivasan V, Kumar S, Pestilli F, Talukdar P, Sridharan D. GPU-accelerated connectome discovery at scale. NATURE COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE 2022; 2:298-306. [PMID: 38177824 PMCID: PMC10766542 DOI: 10.1038/s43588-022-00250-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/06/2021] [Accepted: 04/21/2022] [Indexed: 01/06/2024]
Abstract
Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging and tractography enable the estimation of anatomical connectivity in the human brain, in vivo. Yet, without ground-truth validation, different tractography algorithms can yield widely varying connectivity estimates. Although streamline pruning techniques mitigate this challenge, slow compute times preclude their use in big-data applications. We present 'Regularized, Accelerated, Linear Fascicle Evaluation' (ReAl-LiFE), a GPU-based implementation of a state-of-the-art streamline pruning algorithm (LiFE), which achieves >100× speedups over previous CPU-based implementations. Leveraging these speedups, we overcome key limitations with LiFE's algorithm to generate sparser and more accurate connectomes. We showcase ReAl-LiFE's ability to estimate connections with superlative test-retest reliability, while outperforming competing approaches. Moreover, we predicted inter-individual variations in multiple cognitive scores with ReAl-LiFE connectome features. We propose ReAl-LiFE as a timely tool, surpassing the state of the art, for accurate discovery of individualized brain connectomes at scale. Finally, our GPU-accelerated implementation of a popular non-negative least-squares optimization algorithm is widely applicable to many real-world problems.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Sawan Kumar
- Department of Computational and Data Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
| | - Franco Pestilli
- Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA
| | - Partha Talukdar
- Department of Computational and Data Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
- Department of Computer Science and Automation, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
| | - Devarajan Sridharan
- Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.
- Department of Computer Science and Automation, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.
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18
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Michels L, Moisa M, Stämpfli P, Hirsiger S, Baumgartner MR, Surbeck W, Seifritz E, Quednow BB. The impact of levamisole and alcohol on white matter microstructure in adult chronic cocaine users. Addict Biol 2022; 27:e13149. [PMID: 35394690 PMCID: PMC9287079 DOI: 10.1111/adb.13149] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/25/2021] [Revised: 11/16/2021] [Accepted: 01/11/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Previous brain imaging studies with chronic cocaine users (CU) using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) mostly focused on fractional anisotropy to investigate white matter (WM) integrity. However, a quantitative interpretation of fractional anisotropy (FA) alterations is often impeded by the inherent limitations of the underlying tensor model. A more fine-grained measure of WM alterations could be achieved by measuring fibre density (FD). This study investigates this novel DTI metric comparing 23 chronic CU and 32 healthy subjects. Quantitative hair analysis was used to determine intensity of cocaine and levamisole exposure-a cocaine adulterant with putative WM neurotoxicity. We first assessed the impact of cocaine use, levamisole exposure and alcohol use on group differences in WM integrity. Compared with healthy controls, all models revealed cortical reductions of FA and FD in CU. At the within-patient group level, we found that alcohol use and levamisole exposure exhibited regionally different FA and FD alterations than cocaine use. We found mostly negative correlations of tract-based WM associated with levamisole and weekly alcohol use. Specifically, levamisole exposure was linked with stronger WM reductions in the corpus callosum than alcohol use. Cocaine use duration correlated negatively with FA and FD in some regions. Yet, most of these correlations did not survive a correction for multiple testing. Our results suggest that chronic cocaine use, levamisole exposure and alcohol use were all linked to significant WM impairments in CU. We conclude that FD could be a sensitive marker to detect the impact of the use of multiple substances on WM integrity in cocaine but also other substance use disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lars Michels
- Department of NeuroradiologyUniversity Hospital ZurichZurichSwitzerland
- Neuroscience Center ZurichUniversity of Zurich and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ZurichZurichSwitzerland
| | - Marius Moisa
- Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics, Department of NeuroeconomicsUniversity of ZurichZurichSwitzerland
| | - Philipp Stämpfli
- Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and PsychosomaticsPsychiatric Hospital of the University of ZurichZurichSwitzerland
| | - Sarah Hirsiger
- Experimental and Clinical Pharmacopsychology, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and PsychosomaticsPsychiatric Hospital of the University of ZurichZurichSwitzerland
| | - Markus R. Baumgartner
- Center of Forensic Hair Analytics, Institute of Forensic MedicineUniversity of ZurichZurichSwitzerland
| | - Werner Surbeck
- Experimental and Clinical Pharmacopsychology, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and PsychosomaticsPsychiatric Hospital of the University of ZurichZurichSwitzerland
| | - Erich Seifritz
- Neuroscience Center ZurichUniversity of Zurich and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ZurichZurichSwitzerland
- Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and PsychosomaticsPsychiatric Hospital of the University of ZurichZurichSwitzerland
| | - Boris B. Quednow
- Neuroscience Center ZurichUniversity of Zurich and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ZurichZurichSwitzerland
- Experimental and Clinical Pharmacopsychology, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and PsychosomaticsPsychiatric Hospital of the University of ZurichZurichSwitzerland
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19
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Vinci-Booher S, Caron B, Bullock D, James K, Pestilli F. Development of white matter tracts between and within the dorsal and ventral streams. Brain Struct Funct 2022; 227:1457-1477. [PMID: 35267078 DOI: 10.1007/s00429-021-02414-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/04/2021] [Accepted: 10/12/2021] [Indexed: 01/11/2023]
Abstract
The degree of interaction between the ventral and dorsal visual streams has been discussed in multiple scientific domains for decades. Recently, several white matter tracts that directly connect cortical regions associated with the dorsal and ventral streams have become possible to study due to advancements in automated and reproducible methods. The developmental trajectory of this set of tracts, here referred to as the posterior vertical pathway (PVP), has yet to be described. We propose an input-driven model of white matter development and provide evidence for the model by focusing on the development of the PVP. We used reproducible, cloud-computing methods and diffusion imaging from adults and children (ages 5-8 years) to compare PVP development to that of tracts within the ventral and dorsal pathways. PVP microstructure was more adult-like than dorsal stream microstructure, but less adult-like than ventral stream microstructure. Additionally, PVP microstructure was more similar to the microstructure of the ventral than the dorsal stream and was predicted by performance on a perceptual task in children. Overall, results suggest a potential role for the PVP in the development of the dorsal visual stream that may be related to its ability to facilitate interactions between ventral and dorsal streams during learning. Our results are consistent with the proposed model, suggesting that the microstructural development of major white matter pathways is related, at least in part, to the propagation of sensory information within the visual system.
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Affiliation(s)
- S Vinci-Booher
- Indiana University, 1101 E. 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA.
| | - B Caron
- Indiana University, 1101 E. 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
| | - D Bullock
- Indiana University, 1101 E. 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
| | - K James
- Indiana University, 1101 E. 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
| | - F Pestilli
- Indiana University, 1101 E. 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA.
- The University of Texas, 108 E Dean Keeton St, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
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20
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Grotheer M, Kubota E, Grill-Spector K. Establishing the functional relevancy of white matter connections in the visual system and beyond. Brain Struct Funct 2022; 227:1347-1356. [PMID: 34846595 PMCID: PMC9046284 DOI: 10.1007/s00429-021-02423-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/24/2021] [Accepted: 11/02/2021] [Indexed: 01/04/2023]
Abstract
For over a century, researchers have examined the functional relevancy of white matter bundles. Consequently, many large-scale bundles spanning several centimeters have been associated in their entirety with specific brain functions, such as language or attention. However, these coarse structural-functional relationships are at odds with modern understanding of the fine-grained functional organization of human cortex, such as the mosaic of category-selective regions in ventral temporal cortex. Here, we review a multimodal approach that combines fMRI to define functional regions of interest within individual's brains with dMRI tractography to identify the white matter bundles of the same individual. Combining these data allows to determine which subsets of streamlines within a white matter bundle connect to specific functional regions in each individual. That is, this approach identifies the functionally defined white matter sub-bundles of the brain. We argue that this approach not only enhances the accuracy of interpreting the functional relevancy of white matter bundles, but also enables segmentation of these large-scale bundles into meaningful functional units, which can then be linked to behavior with enhanced precision. Importantly, this approach has the potential for making new discoveries of the fine-grained functional relevancy of white matter connections in the visual system and the brain more broadly, akin to the flurry of research that has identified functional regions in cortex.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mareike Grotheer
- Department of Psychology, Philipps-Universität Marburg, 35032, Marburg, Germany.
- Center for Mind, Brain and Behavior-CMBB, Philipps-Universität Marburg and Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, 35037, Marburg, Germany.
| | - Emily Kubota
- Psychology Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA
| | - Kalanit Grill-Spector
- Psychology Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA
- Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA
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21
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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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22
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Bullock DN, Hayday EA, Grier MD, Tang W, Pestilli F, Heilbronner SR. A taxonomy of the brain's white matter: twenty-one major tracts for the 21st century. Cereb Cortex 2022; 32:4524-4548. [PMID: 35169827 PMCID: PMC9574243 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab500] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/14/2021] [Revised: 12/06/2021] [Accepted: 12/07/2021] [Indexed: 01/26/2023] Open
Abstract
The functional and computational properties of brain areas are determined, in large part, by their connectivity profiles. Advances in neuroimaging and network neuroscience allow us to characterize the human brain noninvasively, but a comprehensive understanding of the human brain demands an account of the anatomy of brain connections. Long-range anatomical connections are instantiated by white matter, which itself is organized into tracts. These tracts are often disrupted by central nervous system disorders, and they can be targeted by neuromodulatory interventions, such as deep brain stimulation. Here, we characterized the connections, morphology, traversal, and functions of the major white matter tracts in the brain. There are major discrepancies across different accounts of white matter tract anatomy, hindering our attempts to accurately map the connectivity of the human brain. However, we are often able to clarify the source(s) of these discrepancies through careful consideration of both histological tract-tracing and diffusion-weighted tractography studies. In combination, the advantages and disadvantages of each method permit novel insights into brain connectivity. Ultimately, our synthesis provides an essential reference for neuroscientists and clinicians interested in brain connectivity and anatomy, allowing for the study of the association of white matter's properties with behavior, development, and disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel N Bullock
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Program in Neuroscience, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA,Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
| | - Elena A Hayday
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
| | - Mark D Grier
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
| | | | | | - Sarah R Heilbronner
- Address correspondence to Sarah R. Heilbronner, Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, 2-164 Jackson Hall, 321 Church St SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
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23
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Normal Retinotopy in Primary Visual Cortex in a Congenital Complete Unilateral Lesion of Lateral Geniculate Nucleus in Human: A Case Study. Int J Mol Sci 2022; 23:ijms23031055. [PMID: 35162977 PMCID: PMC8835673 DOI: 10.3390/ijms23031055] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/31/2021] [Revised: 01/14/2022] [Accepted: 01/15/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Impairment of the geniculostriate pathway results in scotomas in the corresponding part of the visual field. Here, we present a case of patient IB with left eye microphthalmia and with lesions in most of the left geniculostriate pathway, including the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN). Despite the severe lesions, the patient has a very narrow scotoma in the peripheral part of the lower-right-hemifield only (beyond 15° of eccentricity) and complete visual field representation in the primary visual cortex. Population receptive field mapping (pRF) of the patient’s visual field reveals orderly eccentricity maps together with contralateral activation in both hemispheres. With diffusion tractography, we revealed connections between superior colliculus (SC) and cortical structures in the hemisphere affected by the lesions, which could mediate the retinotopic reorganization at the cortical level. Our results indicate an astonishing case for the flexibility of the developing retinotopic maps where the contralateral thalamus receives fibers from both the nasal and temporal retinae.
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24
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Tian Q, Fan Q, Witzel T, Polackal MN, Ohringer NA, Ngamsombat C, Russo AW, Machado N, Brewer K, Wang F, Setsompop K, Polimeni JR, Keil B, Wald LL, Rosen BR, Klawiter EC, Nummenmaa A, Huang SY. Comprehensive diffusion MRI dataset for in vivo human brain microstructure mapping using 300 mT/m gradients. Sci Data 2022; 9:7. [PMID: 35042861 PMCID: PMC8766594 DOI: 10.1038/s41597-021-01092-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/25/2021] [Accepted: 10/25/2021] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Strong gradient systems can improve the signal-to-noise ratio of diffusion MRI measurements and enable a wider range of acquisition parameters that are beneficial for microstructural imaging. We present a comprehensive diffusion MRI dataset of 26 healthy participants acquired on the MGH-USC 3 T Connectome scanner equipped with 300 mT/m maximum gradient strength and a custom-built 64-channel head coil. For each participant, the one-hour long acquisition systematically sampled the accessible diffusion measurement space, including two diffusion times (19 and 49 ms), eight gradient strengths linearly spaced between 30 mT/m and 290 mT/m for each diffusion time, and 32 or 64 uniformly distributed directions. The diffusion MRI data were preprocessed to correct for gradient nonlinearity, eddy currents, and susceptibility induced distortions. In addition, scan/rescan data from a subset of seven individuals were also acquired and provided. The MGH Connectome Diffusion Microstructure Dataset (CDMD) may serve as a test bed for the development of new data analysis methods, such as fiber orientation estimation, tractography and microstructural modelling.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qiyuan Tian
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
| | - Qiuyun Fan
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
| | - Thomas Witzel
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
| | - Maya N Polackal
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States
| | - Ned A Ohringer
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States
| | - Chanon Ngamsombat
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States
| | - Andrew W Russo
- Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
| | - Natalya Machado
- Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
| | - Kristina Brewer
- Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
| | - Fuyixue Wang
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States
- Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
| | - Kawin Setsompop
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
| | - Jonathan R Polimeni
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
| | - Boris Keil
- Department of Life Science Engineering, Institute of Medical Physics and Radiation Protection, Giessen, Germany
| | - Lawrence L Wald
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
| | - Bruce R Rosen
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
| | - Eric C Klawiter
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
| | - Aapo Nummenmaa
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
| | - Susie Y Huang
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States.
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
- Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.
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25
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Echevarria-Cooper SL, Zhou G, Zelano C, Pestilli F, Parrish TB, Kahnt T. Mapping the Microstructure and Striae of the Human Olfactory Tract with Diffusion MRI. J Neurosci 2022; 42:58-68. [PMID: 34759031 PMCID: PMC8741165 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.1552-21.2021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/29/2021] [Revised: 09/30/2021] [Accepted: 10/31/2021] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
The human sense of smell plays an important role in appetite and food intake, detecting environmental threats, social interactions, and memory processing. However, little is known about the neural circuity supporting its function. The olfactory tracts project from the olfactory bulb along the base of the frontal cortex, branching into several striae to meet diverse cortical regions. Historically, using diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) to reconstruct the human olfactory tracts has been prevented by susceptibility and motion artifacts. Here, we used a dMRI method with readout segmentation of long variable echo-trains (RESOLVE) to minimize image distortions and characterize the human olfactory tracts in vivo We collected high-resolution dMRI data from 25 healthy human participants (12 male and 13 female) and performed probabilistic tractography using constrained spherical deconvolution (CSD). At the individual subject level, we identified the lateral, medial, and intermediate striae with their respective cortical connections to the piriform cortex and amygdala (AMY), olfactory tubercle (OT), and anterior olfactory nucleus (AON). We combined individual results across subjects to create a normalized, probabilistic atlas of the olfactory tracts. We then investigated the relationship between olfactory perceptual scores and measures of white matter integrity, including mean diffusivity (MD). Importantly, we found that olfactory tract MD negatively correlated with odor discrimination performance. In summary, our results provide a detailed characterization of the connectivity of the human olfactory tracts and demonstrate an association between their structural integrity and olfactory perceptual function.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT This study provides the first detailed in vivo description of the cortical connectivity of the three olfactory tract striae in the human brain, using diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI). Additionally, we show that tract microstructure correlates with performance on an odor discrimination task, suggesting a link between the structural integrity of the olfactory tracts and odor perception. Lastly, we generated a normalized probabilistic atlas of the olfactory tracts that may be used in future research to study its integrity in health and disease.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shiloh L Echevarria-Cooper
- Department of Neurology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois 60611
- The Graduate School, Northwestern University Interdepartmental Neuroscience (NUIN), Evanston, Illinois 60208
| | - Guangyu Zhou
- Department of Neurology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois 60611
| | - Christina Zelano
- Department of Neurology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois 60611
| | - Franco Pestilli
- Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712
- Center for Perceptual Systems, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712
| | - Todd B Parrish
- Department of Radiology, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois 60611
| | - Thorsten Kahnt
- Department of Neurology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois 60611
- Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Evanston, Illinois 60208
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26
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Correlation Tensor MRI deciphers underlying kurtosis sources in stroke. Neuroimage 2021; 247:118833. [PMID: 34929382 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118833] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2021] [Revised: 12/15/2021] [Accepted: 12/16/2021] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Noninvasively detecting and characterizing modulations in cellular scale micro-architecture remains a desideratum for contemporary neuroimaging. Diffusion MRI (dMRI) has become the mainstay methodology for probing microstructure, and, in ischemia, its contrasts have revolutionized stroke management. Diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) has been shown to significantly enhance the sensitivity of stroke detection compared to its diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) counterparts. However, the interpretation of DKI remains ambiguous as its contrast may arise from competing kurtosis sources related to the anisotropy of tissue components, diffusivity variance across components, and microscopic kurtosis (e.g., arising from cross-sectional variance, structural disorder, and restriction). Resolving these sources may be fundamental for developing more specific imaging techniques for stroke management, prognosis, and understanding its pathophysiology. In this study, we apply Correlation Tensor MRI (CTI) - a double diffusion encoding (DDE) methodology recently introduced for deciphering kurtosis sources based on the unique information captured in DDE's diffusion correlation tensors - to investigate the underpinnings of kurtosis measurements in acute ischemic lesions. Simulations for the different kurtosis sources revealed specific signatures for cross-sectional variance (representing neurite beading), edema, and cell swelling. Ex vivo CTI experiments at 16.4 T were then performed in an experimental photothrombotic stroke model 3 h post-stroke (N = 10), and successfully separated anisotropic, isotropic, and microscopic non-Gaussian diffusion sources in the ischemic lesions. Each of these kurtosis sources provided unique contrasts in the stroked area. Particularly, microscopic kurtosis was shown to be a primary "driver" of total kurtosis upon ischemia; its large increases, coupled with decreases in anisotropic kurtosis, are consistent with the expected elevation in cross-sectional variance, likely linked to beading effects in small objects such as neurites. In vivo experiments at 9.4 T at the same time point (3 h post ischemia, N = 5) demonstrated the stability and relevance of the findings and showed that fixation is not a dominant confounder in our findings. In future studies, the different CTI contrasts may be useful to address current limitations of stroke imaging, e.g., penumbra characterization, distinguishing lesion progression form tissue recovery, and elucidating pathophysiological correlates.
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27
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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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28
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Identifying brain regions supporting amygdalar functionality: Application of a novel graph theory technique. Neuroimage 2021; 244:118614. [PMID: 34571162 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118614] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/23/2021] [Accepted: 09/21/2021] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Effective amygdalar functionality depends on the concerted activity of a complex network of regions. Thus, the role of the amygdala cannot be fully understood without identifying the set of brain structures that allow the processes performed by the amygdala to emerge. However, this identification has yet to occur, hampering our ability to understand both normative and pathological processes that rely on the amygdala. We developed and applied novel graph theory methods to diffusion-based anatomical networks in a large sample (n = 1,052, 54.28% female, mean age=28.75) to identify nodes that critically support amygdalar interactions with the larger brain network. We examined three graph properties, each indexing a different emergent aspect of amygdalar network communication: current-flow betweenness centrality (amygdalar influence on information flowing between other pairs of nodes), node communicability (clarity of communication between the amygdala and other nodes), and subgraph centrality (amygdalar influence over local network processing). Findings demonstrate that each of these aspects of amygdalar communication is associated with separable sets of regions and, in some cases, these sets map onto previously identified sub-circuits. For example, betweenness and communicability were each associated with different sub-circuits that have been identified in previous work as supporting distinct aspects of memory-guided behavior. Other regions identified span basic (e.g., visual cortex) to higher-order (e.g., insula) sensory processing and executive functions (e.g., dorsolateral prefrontal cortex). Present findings expand our current understanding of amygdalar function by showing that there is no single 'amygdala network', but rather multiple networks, each supporting different modes of amygdalar interaction with the larger brain network. Additionally, our novel method allowed for the identification of how such regions support the amygdala, which has not been previously explored.
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29
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Caffarra S, Karipidis II, Yablonski M, Yeatman JD. Anatomy and physiology of word-selective visual cortex: from visual features to lexical processing. Brain Struct Funct 2021; 226:3051-3065. [PMID: 34636985 PMCID: PMC8639194 DOI: 10.1007/s00429-021-02384-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2021] [Accepted: 09/07/2021] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
Over the past 2 decades, researchers have tried to uncover how the human brain can extract linguistic information from a sequence of visual symbols. The description of how the brain's visual system processes words and enables reading has improved with the progressive refinement of experimental methodologies and neuroimaging techniques. This review provides a brief overview of this research journey. We start by describing classical models of object recognition in non-human primates, which represent the foundation for many of the early models of visual word recognition in humans. We then review functional neuroimaging studies investigating the word-selective regions in visual cortex. This research led to the differentiation of highly specialized areas, which are involved in the analysis of different aspects of written language. We then consider the corresponding anatomical measurements and provide a description of the main white matter pathways carrying neural signals crucial to word recognition. Finally, in an attempt to integrate structural, functional, and electrophysiological findings, we propose a view of visual word recognition, accounting for spatial and temporal facets of word-selective neural processes. This multi-modal perspective on the neural circuitry of literacy highlights the relevance of a posterior-anterior differentiation in ventral occipitotemporal cortex for visual processing of written language and lexical features. It also highlights unanswered questions that can guide us towards future research directions. Bridging measures of brain structure and function will help us reach a more precise understanding of the transformation from vision to language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sendy Caffarra
- Division of Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, 291 Campus Drive, Li Ka Shing Building, Stanford, CA, 94305-5101, USA
- Stanford University Graduate School of Education, 485 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Mikeletegi 69, 20009, San Sebastian, Spain
- University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Via Campi 287, 41125, Modena, Italy
| | - Iliana I Karipidis
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research, School of Medicine, Stanford University, 401 Quarry Road, Stanford, CA, 94305-5717, USA.
| | - Maya Yablonski
- Division of Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, 291 Campus Drive, Li Ka Shing Building, Stanford, CA, 94305-5101, USA
- Stanford University Graduate School of Education, 485 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA
| | - Jason D Yeatman
- Division of Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, 291 Campus Drive, Li Ka Shing Building, Stanford, CA, 94305-5101, USA
- Stanford University Graduate School of Education, 485 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA
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Abstract
We describe a collection of T1-, diffusion- and functional T2*-weighted magnetic resonance imaging data from human individuals with albinism and achiasma. This repository can be used as a test-bed to develop and validate tractography methods like diffusion-signal modeling and fiber tracking as well as to investigate the properties of the human visual system in individuals with congenital abnormalities. The MRI data is provided together with tools and files allowing for its preprocessing and analysis, along with the data derivatives such as manually curated masks and regions of interest for performing tractography.
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Schilling KG, Tax CM, Rheault F, Hansen C, Yang Q, Yeh FC, Cai L, Anderson AW, Landman BA. Fiber tractography bundle segmentation depends on scanner effects, vendor effects, acquisition resolution, diffusion sampling scheme, diffusion sensitization, and bundle segmentation workflow. Neuroimage 2021; 242:118451. [PMID: 34358660 PMCID: PMC9933001 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118451] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/19/2021] [Revised: 07/08/2021] [Accepted: 08/03/2021] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
When investigating connectivity and microstructure of white matter pathways of the brain using diffusion tractography bundle segmentation, it is important to understand potential confounds and sources of variation in the process. While cross-scanner and cross-protocol effects on diffusion microstructure measures are well described (in particular fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity), it is unknown how potential sources of variation effect bundle segmentation results, which features of the bundle are most affected, where variability occurs, nor how these sources of variation depend upon the method used to reconstruct and segment bundles. In this study, we investigate six potential sources of variation, or confounds, for bundle segmentation: variation (1) across scan repeats, (2) across scanners, (3) across vendors (4) across acquisition resolution, (5) across diffusion schemes, and (6) across diffusion sensitization. We employ four different bundle segmentation workflows on two benchmark multi-subject cross-scanner and cross-protocol databases, and investigate reproducibility and biases in volume overlap, shape geometry features of fiber pathways, and microstructure features within the pathways. We find that the effects of acquisition protocol, in particular acquisition resolution, result in the lowest reproducibility of tractography and largest variation of features, followed by vendor-effects, scanner-effects, and finally diffusion scheme and b-value effects which had similar reproducibility as scan-rescan variation. However, confounds varied both across pathways and across segmentation workflows, with some bundle segmentation workflows more (or less) robust to sources of variation. Despite variability, bundle dissection is consistently able to recover the same location of pathways in the deep white matter, with variation at the gray matter/ white matter interface. Next, we show that differences due to the choice of bundle segmentation workflows are larger than any other studied confound, with low-to-moderate overlap of the same intended pathway when segmented using different methods. Finally, quantifying microstructure features within a pathway, we show that tractography adds variability over-and-above that which exists due to noise, scanner effects, and acquisition effects. Overall, these confounds need to be considered when harmonizing diffusion datasets, interpreting or combining data across sites, and when attempting to understand the successes and limitations of different methodologies in the design and development of new tractography or bundle segmentation methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kurt G. Schilling
- Department of Radiology & Radiological Science, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States,Vanderbilt Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States
| | - Chantal M.W. Tax
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
| | - Francois Rheault
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
| | - Colin Hansen
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
| | - Qi Yang
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
| | - Fang-Cheng Yeh
- Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh, United States
| | - Leon Cai
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
| | - Adam W. Anderson
- Department of Radiology & Radiological Science, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States,Vanderbilt Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States,Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
| | - Bennett A. Landman
- Department of Radiology & Radiological Science, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States,Vanderbilt Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States,Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States,Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
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32
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Frigo M, Cruciani E, Coudert D, Deriche R, Natale E, Deslauriers-Gauthier S. Network alignment and similarity reveal atlas-based topological differences in structural connectomes. Netw Neurosci 2021; 5:711-733. [PMID: 34746624 PMCID: PMC8567827 DOI: 10.1162/netn_a_00199] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/18/2020] [Accepted: 05/06/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
The interactions between different brain regions can be modeled as a graph, called connectome, whose nodes correspond to parcels from a predefined brain atlas. The edges of the graph encode the strength of the axonal connectivity between regions of the atlas that can be estimated via diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tractography. Herein, we aim to provide a novel perspective on the problem of choosing a suitable atlas for structural connectivity studies by assessing how robustly an atlas captures the network topology across different subjects in a homogeneous cohort. We measure this robustness by assessing the alignability of the connectomes, namely the possibility to retrieve graph matchings that provide highly similar graphs. We introduce two novel concepts. First, the graph Jaccard index (GJI), a graph similarity measure based on the well-established Jaccard index between sets; the GJI exhibits natural mathematical properties that are not satisfied by previous approaches. Second, we devise WL-align, a new technique for aligning connectomes obtained by adapting the Weisfeiler-Leman (WL) graph-isomorphism test. We validated the GJI and WL-align on data from the Human Connectome Project database, inferring a strategy for choosing a suitable parcellation for structural connectivity studies. Code and data are publicly available. An important part of our current understanding of the structure of the human brain relies on the concept of brain network, which is obtained by looking at how different brain regions are connected with each other. In this paper we present a strategy for choosing a suitable parcellation of the brain for structural connectivity studies by making use of the concepts of network alignment and similarity. To do so, we design a novel similarity measure between weighted networks called graph Jaccard index, and a new network alignment technique called WL-align. By assessing the possibility to retrieve graph matchings that provide highly similar graphs, we show that morphology- and structure-based atlases define brain networks that are more topologically robust across a wide range of resolutions.
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33
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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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34
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He J, Zhang F, Xie G, Yao S, Feng Y, Bastos DCA, Rathi Y, Makris N, Kikinis R, Golby AJ, O'Donnell LJ. Comparison of multiple tractography methods for reconstruction of the retinogeniculate visual pathway using diffusion MRI. Hum Brain Mapp 2021; 42:3887-3904. [PMID: 33978265 PMCID: PMC8288095 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.25472] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/01/2021] [Revised: 04/24/2021] [Accepted: 04/25/2021] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
The retinogeniculate visual pathway (RGVP) conveys visual information from the retina to the lateral geniculate nucleus. The RGVP has four subdivisions, including two decussating and two nondecussating pathways that cannot be identified on conventional structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Diffusion MRI tractography has the potential to trace these subdivisions and is increasingly used to study the RGVP. However, it is not yet known which fiber tracking strategy is most suitable for RGVP reconstruction. In this study, four tractography methods are compared, including constrained spherical deconvolution (CSD) based probabilistic (iFOD1) and deterministic (SD-Stream) methods, and multi-fiber (UKF-2T) and single-fiber (UKF-1T) unscented Kalman filter (UKF) methods. Experiments use diffusion MRI data from 57 subjects in the Human Connectome Project. The RGVP is identified using regions of interest created by two clinical experts. Quantitative anatomical measurements and expert anatomical judgment are used to assess the advantages and limitations of the four tractography methods. Overall, we conclude that UKF-2T and iFOD1 produce the best RGVP reconstruction results. The iFOD1 method can better quantitatively estimate the percentage of decussating fibers, while the UKF-2T method produces reconstructed RGVPs that are judged to better correspond to the known anatomy and have the highest spatial overlap across subjects. Overall, we find that it is challenging for current tractography methods to both accurately track RGVP fibers that correspond to known anatomy and produce an approximately correct percentage of decussating fibers. We suggest that future algorithm development for RGVP tractography should take consideration of both of these two points.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jianzhong He
- Institute of Information Processing and Automation, College of Information Engineering, Zhejiang University of TechnologyHangzhouChina
- Department of RadiologyBrigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
| | - Fan Zhang
- Department of RadiologyBrigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
| | - Guoqiang Xie
- Department of RadiologyBrigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
- Department of NeurosurgeryNuclear Industry 215 Hospital of Shaanxi ProvinceXianyangChina
| | - Shun Yao
- Department of Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women's HospitalHarvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
- Center for Pituitary Tumor Surgery, Department of NeurosurgeryThe First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat‐sen UniversityGuangzhouChina
| | - Yuanjing Feng
- Institute of Information Processing and Automation, College of Information Engineering, Zhejiang University of TechnologyHangzhouChina
| | - Dhiego C. A. Bastos
- Department of Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women's HospitalHarvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
| | - Yogesh Rathi
- Department of RadiologyBrigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
- Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women's HospitalHarvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
| | - Nikos Makris
- Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women's HospitalHarvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
- Departments of Psychiatry, Neurology and Radiology, Massachusetts General HospitalHarvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
| | - Ron Kikinis
- Department of RadiologyBrigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
| | - Alexandra J. Golby
- Department of RadiologyBrigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
- Department of Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women's HospitalHarvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
| | - Lauren J. O'Donnell
- Department of RadiologyBrigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolBostonMassachusettsUSA
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35
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Perani D, Scifo P, Cicchini GM, Rosa PD, Banfi C, Mascheretti S, Falini A, Marino C, Morrone MC. White matter deficits correlate with visual motion perception impairments in dyslexic carriers of the DCDC2 genetic risk variant. Exp Brain Res 2021; 239:2725-2740. [PMID: 34228165 PMCID: PMC8448712 DOI: 10.1007/s00221-021-06137-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/24/2020] [Accepted: 05/12/2021] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
Motion perception deficits in dyslexia show a large intersubjective variability, partly reflecting genetic factors influencing brain architecture development. In previous work, we have demonstrated that dyslexic carriers of a mutation of the DCDC2 gene have a very strong impairment in motion perception. In the present study, we investigated structural white matter alterations associated with the poor motion perception in a cohort of twenty dyslexics with a subgroup carrying the DCDC2 gene deletion (DCDC2d+) and a subgroup without the risk variant (DCDC2d–). We observed significant deficits in motion contrast sensitivity and in motion direction discrimination accuracy at high contrast, stronger in the DCDC2d+ group. Both motion perception impairments correlated significantly with the fractional anisotropy in posterior ventral and dorsal tracts, including early visual pathways both along the optic radiation and in proximity of occipital cortex, MT and VWFA. However, the DCDC2d+ group showed stronger correlations between FA and motion perception impairments than the DCDC2d– group in early visual white matter bundles, including the optic radiations, and in ventral pathways located in the left inferior temporal cortex. Our results suggest that the DCDC2d+ group experiences higher vulnerability in visual motion processing even at early stages of visual analysis, which might represent a specific feature associated with the genotype and provide further neurobiological support to the visual-motion deficit account of dyslexia in a specific subpopulation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniela Perani
- Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy.,C.E.R.M.A.C. (Centro di Risonanza Magnetica ad Alto Campo), Milan, Italy.,Nuclear Medicine Department, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy
| | - Paola Scifo
- C.E.R.M.A.C. (Centro di Risonanza Magnetica ad Alto Campo), Milan, Italy.,Nuclear Medicine Department, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy
| | - Guido M Cicchini
- Institute of Neuroscience, National Research Council (CNR), Pisa, Italy.
| | - Pasquale Della Rosa
- C.E.R.M.A.C. (Centro di Risonanza Magnetica ad Alto Campo), Milan, Italy.,Unit of Neuroradiology, IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele, Milan, Italy
| | - Chiara Banfi
- Institute of Psychology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria
| | - Sara Mascheretti
- Child Psychopathology Unit, Scientific Institute Eugenio Medea, Bosisio Parini, Italy
| | - Andrea Falini
- Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy.,C.E.R.M.A.C. (Centro di Risonanza Magnetica ad Alto Campo), Milan, Italy.,Unit of Neuroradiology, IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele, Milan, Italy
| | - Cecilia Marino
- Department of Psychiatry, Unviersity of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.,Division of Child and Youth Psychiatry, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Toronto, Canada
| | - Maria Concetta Morrone
- Department of Translational Research on New Technologies in Medicine and Surgery, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.,Scientific Institute Stella Maris (IRCSS), Pisa, Italy
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36
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Barakovic M, Girard G, Schiavi S, Romascano D, Descoteaux M, Granziera C, Jones DK, Innocenti GM, Thiran JP, Daducci A. Bundle-Specific Axon Diameter Index as a New Contrast to Differentiate White Matter Tracts. Front Neurosci 2021; 15:646034. [PMID: 34211362 PMCID: PMC8239216 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2021.646034] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/24/2020] [Accepted: 05/17/2021] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
In the central nervous system of primates, several pathways are characterized by different spectra of axon diameters. In vivo methods, based on diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging, can provide axon diameter index estimates non-invasively. However, such methods report voxel-wise estimates, which vary from voxel-to-voxel for the same white matter bundle due to partial volume contributions from other pathways having different microstructure properties. Here, we propose a novel microstructure-informed tractography approach, COMMITAxSize, to resolve axon diameter index estimates at the streamline level, thus making the estimates invariant along trajectories. Compared to previously proposed voxel-wise methods, our formulation allows the estimation of a distinct axon diameter index value for each streamline, directly, furnishing a complementary measure to the existing calculation of the mean value along the bundle. We demonstrate the favourable performance of our approach comparing our estimates with existing histologically-derived measurements performed in the corpus callosum and the posterior limb of the internal capsule. Overall, our method provides a more robust estimation of the axon diameter index of pathways by jointly estimating the microstructure properties of the tissue and the macroscopic organisation of the white matter connectivity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Muhamed Barakovic
- Signal Processing Lab 5, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Translational Imaging in Neurology (ThINk) Basel, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University Hospital Basel and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Neurologic Clinic and Policlinic, Departments of Medicine, Clinical Research and Biomedical Engineering, University Hospital Basel and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Gabriel Girard
- Signal Processing Lab 5, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
- CIBM Center for BioMedical Imaging, Lausanne, Switzerland
- Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Simona Schiavi
- Signal Processing Lab 5, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
- Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
| | - David Romascano
- Signal Processing Lab 5, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Maxime Descoteaux
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Lab, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
| | - Cristina Granziera
- Translational Imaging in Neurology (ThINk) Basel, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University Hospital Basel and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Neurologic Clinic and Policlinic, Departments of Medicine, Clinical Research and Biomedical Engineering, University Hospital Basel and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Derek K. Jones
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Giorgio M. Innocenti
- Signal Processing Lab 5, 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
| | - Jean-Philippe Thiran
- Signal Processing Lab 5, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
- CIBM Center for BioMedical Imaging, Lausanne, Switzerland
- Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
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37
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Legarreta JH, Petit L, Rheault F, Theaud G, Lemaire C, Descoteaux M, Jodoin PM. Filtering in tractography using autoencoders (FINTA). Med Image Anal 2021; 72:102126. [PMID: 34161915 DOI: 10.1016/j.media.2021.102126] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2020] [Revised: 04/20/2021] [Accepted: 05/26/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Current brain white matter fiber tracking techniques show a number of problems, including: generating large proportions of streamlines that do not accurately describe the underlying anatomy; extracting streamlines that are not supported by the underlying diffusion signal; and under-representing some fiber populations, among others. In this paper, we describe a novel autoencoder-based learning method to filter streamlines from diffusion MRI tractography, and hence, to obtain more reliable tractograms. Our method, dubbed FINTA (Filtering in Tractography using Autoencoders) uses raw, unlabeled tractograms to train the autoencoder, and to learn a robust representation of brain streamlines. Such an embedding is then used to filter undesired streamline samples using a nearest neighbor algorithm. Our experiments on both synthetic and in vivo human brain diffusion MRI tractography data obtain accuracy scores exceeding the 90% threshold on the test set. Results reveal that FINTA has a superior filtering performance compared to conventional, anatomy-based methods, and the RecoBundles state-of-the-art method. Additionally, we demonstrate that FINTA can be applied to partial tractograms without requiring changes to the framework. We also show that the proposed method generalizes well across different tracking methods and datasets, and shortens significantly the computation time for large (>1 M streamlines) tractograms. Together, this work brings forward a new deep learning framework in tractography based on autoencoders, which offers a flexible and powerful method for white matter filtering and bundling that could enhance tractometry and connectivity analyses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jon Haitz Legarreta
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Laboratory (SCIL), Department of Computer Science, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500, boul. de l'Université, Sherbrooke, Québec J1K 2R1, Canada; Videos & Images Theory and Analytics Laboratory (VITAL), Department of Computer Science, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500, boul. de l'Université, Sherbrooke, Québec J1K 2R1, Canada.
| | - Laurent Petit
- Groupe d'Imagerie Neurofonctionnelle (GIN), Univ. Bordeaux, CNRS, CEA, IMN, UMR 5293, Bordeaux F-33000, France
| | - François Rheault
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Laboratory (SCIL), Department of Computer Science, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500, boul. de l'Université, Sherbrooke, Québec J1K 2R1, Canada
| | - Guillaume Theaud
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Laboratory (SCIL), Department of Computer Science, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500, boul. de l'Université, Sherbrooke, Québec J1K 2R1, Canada
| | - Carl Lemaire
- Centre de Calcul Scientifique, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500, boul. de l'Université, Sherbrooke, Québec J1K 2R1, Canada
| | - Maxime Descoteaux
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Laboratory (SCIL), Department of Computer Science, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500, boul. de l'Université, Sherbrooke, Québec J1K 2R1, Canada
| | - Pierre-Marc Jodoin
- Videos & Images Theory and Analytics Laboratory (VITAL), Department of Computer Science, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500, boul. de l'Université, Sherbrooke, Québec J1K 2R1, Canada
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38
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Yeh CH, Jones DK, Liang X, Descoteaux M, Connelly A. Mapping Structural Connectivity Using Diffusion MRI: Challenges and Opportunities. J Magn Reson Imaging 2021; 53:1666-1682. [PMID: 32557893 PMCID: PMC7615246 DOI: 10.1002/jmri.27188] [Citation(s) in RCA: 72] [Impact Index Per Article: 24.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/03/2020] [Revised: 04/21/2020] [Accepted: 04/21/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Diffusion MRI-based tractography is the most commonly-used technique when inferring the structural brain connectome, i.e., the comprehensive map of the connections in the brain. The utility of graph theory-a powerful mathematical approach for modeling complex network systems-for analyzing tractography-based connectomes brings important opportunities to interrogate connectome data, providing novel insights into the connectivity patterns and topological characteristics of brain structural networks. When applying this framework, however, there are challenges, particularly regarding methodological and biological plausibility. This article describes the challenges surrounding quantitative tractography and potential solutions. In addition, challenges related to the calculation of global network metrics based on graph theory are discussed.Evidence Level: 5Technical Efficacy: Stage 1.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chun-Hung Yeh
- Institute for Radiological Research, Chang Gung University and Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Linkou Medical Center, Taoyuan, Taiwan
- Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Florey Department of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
| | - Derek K. Jones
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
- Mary Mackillop Institute for Health Research, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
| | - Xiaoyun Liang
- Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Florey Department of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Mary Mackillop Institute for Health Research, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
| | - Maxime Descoteaux
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Laboratory (SCIL), Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
| | - Alan Connelly
- Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Florey Department of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
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39
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Finzi D, Gomez J, Nordt M, Rezai AA, Poltoratski S, Grill-Spector K. Differential spatial computations in ventral and lateral face-selective regions are scaffolded by structural connections. Nat Commun 2021; 12:2278. [PMID: 33859195 PMCID: PMC8050273 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22524-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2020] [Accepted: 03/12/2021] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Face-processing occurs across ventral and lateral visual streams, which are involved in static and dynamic face perception, respectively. However, the nature of spatial computations across streams is unknown. Using functional MRI and population receptive field (pRF) mapping, we measured pRFs in face-selective regions. Results reveal that spatial computations by pRFs in ventral face-selective regions are concentrated around the center of gaze (fovea), but spatial computations in lateral face-selective regions extend peripherally. Diffusion MRI reveals that these differences are mirrored by a preponderance of white matter connections between ventral face-selective regions and foveal early visual cortex (EVC), while connections with lateral regions are distributed more uniformly across EVC eccentricities. These findings suggest a rethinking of spatial computations in face-selective regions, showing that they vary across ventral and lateral streams, and further propose that spatial computations in high-level regions are scaffolded by the fine-grain pattern of white matter connections from EVC.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dawn Finzi
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
| | - Jesse Gomez
- Neurosciences Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Marisa Nordt
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Alex A Rezai
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
| | | | - Kalanit Grill-Spector
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
- Neurosciences Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
- Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
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40
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Toescu SM, Hales PW, Kaden E, Lacerda LM, Aquilina K, Clark CA. Tractographic and Microstructural Analysis of the Dentato-Rubro-Thalamo-Cortical Tracts in Children Using Diffusion MRI. Cereb Cortex 2021; 31:2595-2609. [PMID: 33338201 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa377] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
The dentato-rubro-thalamo-cortical tract (DRTC) is the main outflow pathway of the cerebellum, contributing to a finely balanced corticocerebellar loop involved in cognitive and sensorimotor functions. Damage to the DRTC has been implicated in cerebellar mutism syndrome seen in up to 25% of children after cerebellar tumor resection. Multi-shell diffusion MRI (dMRI) combined with quantitative constrained spherical deconvolution tractography and multi-compartment spherical mean technique modeling was used to explore the frontocerebellar connections and microstructural signature of the DRTC in 30 healthy children. The highest density of DRTC connections were to the precentral (M1) and superior frontal gyri (F1), and from cerebellar lobules I-IV and IX. The first evidence of a topographic organization of anterograde projections to the frontal cortex at the level of the superior cerebellar peduncle (SCP) is demonstrated, with streamlines terminating in F1 lying dorsomedially in the SCP compared to those terminating in M1. The orientation dispersion entropy of DRTC regions appears to exhibit greater contrast than that shown by fractional anisotropy. Analysis of a separate reproducibility cohort demonstrates good consistency in the dMRI metrics described. These novel anatomical insights into this well-studied pathway may prove to be of clinical relevance in the surgical resection of cerebellar tumors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sebastian M Toescu
- Developmental Imaging and Biophysics Section, UCL-GOS Institute of Child Health, London WC1N 1EH, UK.,Department of Neurosurgery, Great Ormond Street Hospital, London WC1N 3JH, UK
| | - Patrick W Hales
- Developmental Imaging and Biophysics Section, UCL-GOS Institute of Child Health, London WC1N 1EH, UK
| | - Enrico Kaden
- Developmental Imaging and Biophysics Section, UCL-GOS Institute of Child Health, London WC1N 1EH, UK.,Centre for Medical Image Computing, University College London, London WC1V 6LJ, UK
| | - Luis M Lacerda
- Developmental Imaging and Biophysics Section, UCL-GOS Institute of Child Health, London WC1N 1EH, UK
| | - Kristian Aquilina
- Department of Neurosurgery, Great Ormond Street Hospital, London WC1N 3JH, UK
| | - Christopher A Clark
- Developmental Imaging and Biophysics Section, UCL-GOS Institute of Child Health, London WC1N 1EH, UK
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41
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Barakovic M, Tax CMW, Rudrapatna U, Chamberland M, Rafael-Patino J, Granziera C, Thiran JP, Daducci A, Canales-Rodríguez EJ, Jones DK. Resolving bundle-specific intra-axonal T 2 values within a voxel using diffusion-relaxation tract-based estimation. Neuroimage 2021; 227:117617. [PMID: 33301934 PMCID: PMC7615251 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117617] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2020] [Revised: 11/23/2020] [Accepted: 11/29/2020] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
At the typical spatial resolution of MRI in the human brain, approximately 60-90% of voxels contain multiple fiber populations. Quantifying microstructural properties of distinct fiber populations within a voxel is therefore challenging but necessary. While progress has been made for diffusion and T1-relaxation properties, how to resolve intra-voxel T2 heterogeneity remains an open question. Here a novel framework, named COMMIT-T2, is proposed that uses tractography-based spatial regularization with diffusion-relaxometry data to estimate multiple intra-axonal T2 values within a voxel. Unlike previously-proposed voxel-based T2 estimation methods, which (when applied in white matter) implicitly assume just one fiber bundle in the voxel or the same T2 for all bundles in the voxel, COMMIT-T2 can recover specific T2 values for each unique fiber population passing through the voxel. In this approach, the number of recovered unique T2 values is not determined by a number of model parameters set a priori, but rather by the number of tractography-reconstructed streamlines passing through the voxel. Proof-of-concept is provided in silico and in vivo, including a demonstration that distinct tract-specific T2 profiles can be recovered even in the three-way crossing of the corpus callosum, arcuate fasciculus, and corticospinal tract. We demonstrate the favourable performance of COMMIT-T2 compared to that of voxelwise approaches for mapping intra-axonal T2 exploiting diffusion, including a direction-averaged method and AMICO-T2, a new extension to the previously-proposed Accelerated Microstructure Imaging via Convex Optimization (AMICO) framework.
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Affiliation(s)
- Muhamed Barakovic
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK; Signal Processing Laboratory 5 (LTS5), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Translational Imaging in Neurology (ThINk) Basel, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University Hospital Basel and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Chantal M W Tax
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK
| | - Umesh Rudrapatna
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK
| | - Maxime Chamberland
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK
| | - Jonathan Rafael-Patino
- Signal Processing Laboratory 5 (LTS5), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Cristina Granziera
- Translational Imaging in Neurology (ThINk) Basel, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University Hospital Basel and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland; Neurologic Clinic and Policlinic, Departments of Medicine, Clinical Research and Biomedical Engineering, University Hospital Basel and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Jean-Philippe Thiran
- Signal Processing Laboratory 5 (LTS5), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, 1005 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | | | - Erick J Canales-Rodríguez
- Signal Processing Laboratory 5 (LTS5), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; FIDMAG Germanes Hospitalàries Research Foundation, CIBERSAM, Barcelona, Spain.
| | - Derek K Jones
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK; Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research, Faculty of Health Sciences, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia
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42
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Caron B, Stuck R, McPherson B, Bullock D, Kitchell L, Faskowitz J, Kellar D, Cheng H, Newman S, Port N, Pestilli F. Collegiate athlete brain data for white matter mapping and network neuroscience. Sci Data 2021; 8:56. [PMID: 33574337 PMCID: PMC7878753 DOI: 10.1038/s41597-021-00823-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/28/2020] [Accepted: 12/14/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
We describe a dataset of processed data with associated reproducible preprocessing pipeline collected from two collegiate athlete groups and one non-athlete group. The dataset shares minimally processed diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) data, three models of the diffusion signal in the voxel, full-brain tractograms, segmentation of the major white matter tracts as well as structural connectivity matrices. There is currently a paucity of similar datasets openly shared. Furthermore, major challenges are associated with collecting this type of data. The data and derivatives shared here can be used as a reference to study the effects of long-term exposure to collegiate athletics, such as the effects of repetitive head impacts. We use advanced anatomical and dMRI data processing methods publicly available as reproducible web services at brainlife.io.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bradley Caron
- Program in Neuroscience, Indiana University, 702 North Walnut Grove St, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
- School of Optometry, Indiana University, 800 E. Atwater Avenue, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
| | - Ricardo Stuck
- Program in Neuroscience, Indiana University, 702 North Walnut Grove St, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
| | - Brent McPherson
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, 1101 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
| | - Daniel Bullock
- Program in Neuroscience, Indiana University, 702 North Walnut Grove St, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, 1101 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
| | - Lindsey Kitchell
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, 1101 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
- Program in Cognitive Science, Indiana University, 1101 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
- Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD, 20723, USA
| | - Joshua Faskowitz
- Program in Neuroscience, Indiana University, 702 North Walnut Grove St, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, 1101 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
| | - Derek Kellar
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, 1101 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
| | - Hu Cheng
- Program in Neuroscience, Indiana University, 702 North Walnut Grove St, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, 1101 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
| | - Sharlene Newman
- Program in Neuroscience, Indiana University, 702 North Walnut Grove St, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, 1101 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
- Alabama Life Research Institute, The University of Alabama, 1402E Northeast Medical Building, Box 870328, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
| | - Nicholas Port
- Program in Neuroscience, Indiana University, 702 North Walnut Grove St, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
- School of Optometry, Indiana University, 800 E. Atwater Avenue, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, 1101 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
- Program in Cognitive Science, Indiana University, 1101 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
| | - Franco Pestilli
- Program in Neuroscience, Indiana University, 702 North Walnut Grove St, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA.
- School of Optometry, Indiana University, 800 E. Atwater Avenue, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA.
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, 1101 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA.
- Program in Cognitive Science, Indiana University, 1101 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA.
- Department of Computer Science, School of Informatics, Indiana University, 700 North Woodlawn Avenue, Bloomington, IN, 47408, USA.
- Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering, School of Informatics, Indiana University, 700 North Woodlawn Avenue, Bloomington, IN, 47408, USA.
- Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, 108 E Dean Keeton St, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
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43
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Ocampo-Pineda M, Schiavi S, Rheault F, Girard G, Petit L, Descoteaux M, Daducci A. Hierarchical Microstructure Informed Tractography. Brain Connect 2021; 11:75-88. [PMID: 33512262 DOI: 10.1089/brain.2020.0907] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Background: Tractography uses diffusion magnetic resonance imaging to noninvasively infer the macroscopic pathways of white matter fibers and it is the only available technique to probe in vivo the structural connectivity of the brain. However, despite this unique and compelling ability and its wide range of possible neurological applications, tractography is still limited, lacks anatomical precision, and suffers from a serious sensitivity/specificity trade-off. For this reason, in the past few years, tractography postprocessing techniques have emerged and proved effective for improving the quality of the reconstructions. Among them, the Convex Optimization Modeling for Microstructure Informed Tractography formulation allows incorporating the anatomical prior that fibers are naturally organized in fascicles, and has obtained exceptional results in increasing the accuracy of the estimated tractograms. Methods: We propose an extension to this idea and introduce a multilevel grouping of the streamlines to capture the white matter arrangement in fascicles and subfascicles. We tested our proposed formulation in synthetic and in vivo data. Results: Our experiments show that using multiple levels allows considering information about the white matter organization more adequately and helps to improve further the accuracy of the resulting tractograms. Conclusion: This new formulation represents a further important step toward a more accurate structural connectivity estimation.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Simona Schiavi
- Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
| | - François Rheault
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Lab (SCIL), Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Canada
| | - Gabriel Girard
- Center for BioMedical Imaging (CIBM), Lausanne, Switzerland.,University Hospital Center (CHUV) and University of Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland.,Signal Processing Lab (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Laurent Petit
- Groupe d'Imagerie Neurofonctionnelle, Université de Bordeaux, CNRS, CEA, IMN, UMR 5293, Bordeaux, France
| | - Maxime Descoteaux
- Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Lab (SCIL), Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Canada
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Wang Y, Wang X, Shi H, Xia L, Dong J, Nguchu BA, Uwisengeyimana JDD, Liu Y, Zhang D, Feng L, Qiu B. Microstructural properties of major white matter tracts in constant exotropia before and after strabismus surgery. Br J Ophthalmol 2021; 106:870-877. [PMID: 33468491 DOI: 10.1136/bjophthalmol-2020-317948] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/17/2020] [Revised: 12/08/2020] [Accepted: 01/04/2021] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
Abstract
AIMS The purpose of this study was to explore the microstructural properties of the major white matter (WM) tracts in constant exotropia (XT) before and after strabismus surgery, and further investigate the association between microstructural alterations and the ocular dominance (OD). METHODS We collected diffusion tensor imaging data of patients with XT before (n=19) and after (n=15) strabismus surgery and 20 healthy controls and evaluated OD and stereopsis. The probabilistic streamline tractography of the 24 major WM tracts was reconstructed by using the automated fibre quantification package. Fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity (MD) along each tract were estimated, and their differences between the groups were examined. Furthermore, we evaluated the relationship between OD and the absolute value of altered microstructural parameters. RESULTS While all postoperative XT patients restored normal stereopsis, most of their OD remained aberrant (9 out of 11). Compared with that of preoperation, the MD of postoperative patients decreased significantly along left anterior thalamic radiation (ATR), left arcuate fasciculus (AF), left corticospinal tract (CST), left cingulum cingulate (CGC) and left inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus. Moreover, OD was negatively correlated with the absolute value of MD changes in left ATR, left AF, left CST and left CGC. CONCLUSION Microstructural alterations after surgery in the visuospatial network tracts may contribute to the stereopsis restoration. Additionally, the results of the correlation analysis may signify that the balanced binocular input may be more conducive for the restoration and improvement of binocular visual function, including stereopsis. Thus, restoring normal ocular balance after surgical correction may be necessary to achieve more substantial improvements.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yanming Wang
- Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and the Centers for Biomedical Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China
| | - Xiaoxiao Wang
- Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and the Centers for Biomedical Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China
| | - Hongmei Shi
- Department of Ophthalmology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, China.,Department of Ophthalmology, The People's Hospital of Bozhou, Bozhou, Anhui, China
| | - Lin Xia
- Department of Ophthalmology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, China
| | - Jiong Dong
- Department of Ophthalmology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, China
| | - Benedictor Alexander Nguchu
- Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and the Centers for Biomedical Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China
| | - Jean De Dieu Uwisengeyimana
- Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and the Centers for Biomedical Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China
| | - Yanpeng Liu
- Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and the Centers for Biomedical Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China
| | - Du Zhang
- Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and the Centers for Biomedical Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China
| | - Lixia Feng
- Department of Ophthalmology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, China
| | - Bensheng Qiu
- Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and the Centers for Biomedical Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China
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45
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Sani I, Stemmann H, Caron B, Bullock D, Stemmler T, Fahle M, Pestilli F, Freiwald WA. The human endogenous attentional control network includes a ventro-temporal cortical node. Nat Commun 2021; 12:360. [PMID: 33452252 PMCID: PMC7810878 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20583-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/16/2020] [Accepted: 12/07/2020] [Indexed: 01/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Endogenous attention is the cognitive function that selects the relevant pieces of sensory information to achieve goals and it is known to be controlled by dorsal fronto-parietal brain areas. Here we expand this notion by identifying a control attention area located in the temporal lobe. By combining a demanding behavioral paradigm with functional neuroimaging and diffusion tractography, we show that like fronto-parietal attentional areas, the human posterior inferotemporal cortex exhibits significant attentional modulatory activity. This area is functionally distinct from surrounding cortical areas, and is directly connected to parietal and frontal attentional regions. These results show that attentional control spans three cortical lobes and overarches large distances through fiber pathways that run orthogonally to the dominant anterior-posterior axes of sensory processing, thus suggesting a different organizing principle for cognitive control.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ilaria Sani
- grid.134907.80000 0001 2166 1519Laboratory of Neural Systems, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY 10065 USA ,grid.8591.50000 0001 2322 4988Laboratory of Neurology & Imaging of Cognition, University of Geneva, Chemin de mines 9, 1202 Geneva, CH Switzerland
| | - Heiko Stemmann
- grid.7704.40000 0001 2297 4381Institute for Brain Research and Center for Advanced Imaging, University of Bremen, 28334 Bremen, Germany
| | - Bradley Caron
- grid.411377.70000 0001 0790 959XDepartment of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN USA
| | - Daniel Bullock
- grid.411377.70000 0001 0790 959XDepartment of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN USA
| | - Torsten Stemmler
- grid.7704.40000 0001 2297 4381Institute for Brain Research and Center for Advanced Imaging, University of Bremen, 28334 Bremen, Germany
| | - Manfred Fahle
- grid.7704.40000 0001 2297 4381Institute for Brain Research and Center for Advanced Imaging, University of Bremen, 28334 Bremen, Germany
| | - Franco Pestilli
- grid.411377.70000 0001 0790 959XDepartment of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN USA ,grid.89336.370000 0004 1936 9924Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 USA
| | - Winrich A. Freiwald
- grid.134907.80000 0001 2166 1519Laboratory of Neural Systems, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY 10065 USA ,Center for Brains, Minds & Machines, Cambridge, MA USA
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46
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Cottaar M, Bastiani M, Boddu N, Glasser MF, Haber S, van Essen DC, Sotiropoulos SN, Jbabdi S. Modelling white matter in gyral blades as a continuous vector field. Neuroimage 2020; 227:117693. [PMID: 33385545 PMCID: PMC7610793 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117693] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2020] [Revised: 11/19/2020] [Accepted: 12/21/2020] [Indexed: 01/27/2023] Open
Abstract
Many brain imaging studies aim to measure structural connectivity with diffusion tractography. However, biases in tractography data, particularly near the boundary between white matter and cortical grey matter can limit the accuracy of such studies. When seeding from the white matter, streamlines tend to travel parallel to the convoluted cortical surface, largely avoiding sulcal fundi and terminating preferentially on gyral crowns. When seeding from the cortical grey matter, streamlines generally run near the cortical surface until reaching deep white matter. These so-called “gyral biases” limit the accuracy and effective resolution of cortical structural connectivity profiles estimated by tractography algorithms, and they do not reflect the expected distributions of axonal densities seen in invasive tracer studies or stains of myelinated fibres. We propose an algorithm that concurrently models fibre density and orientation using a divergence-free vector field within gyral blades to encourage an anatomically-justified streamline density distribution along the cortical white/grey-matter boundary while maintaining alignment with the diffusion MRI estimated fibre orientations. Using in vivo data from the Human Connectome Project, we show that this algorithm reduces tractography biases. We compare the structural connectomes to functional connectomes from resting-state fMRI, showing that our model improves cross-modal agreement. Finally, we find that after parcellation the changes in the structural connectome are very minor with slightly improved interhemispheric connections (i.e, more homotopic connectivity) and slightly worse intrahemi-spheric connections when compared to tracers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michiel Cottaar
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN), Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB), University of Oxford, UK.
| | - Matteo Bastiani
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN), Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB), University of Oxford, UK; Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, UK
| | - Nikhil Boddu
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN), Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB), University of Oxford, UK
| | - Matthew F Glasser
- Department of Neuroscience, Washington University Medical School, Saint Louis, MO 63110, USA; Department of Radiology, Washington University Medical School, Saint Louis, MO 63110, USA; St. Luke's Hospital, Saint Louis, MO 63017, USA
| | - Suzanne Haber
- McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Belmont, USA; Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry, Rochester, USA
| | - David C van Essen
- Department of Neuroscience, Washington University Medical School, Saint Louis, MO 63110, USA
| | - Stamatios N Sotiropoulos
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN), Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB), University of Oxford, UK; Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, UK
| | - Saad Jbabdi
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN), Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB), University of Oxford, UK
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47
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Bansal R, Peterson BS. Use of random matrix theory in the discovery of resting state brain networks. Magn Reson Imaging 2020; 77:69-87. [PMID: 33326838 DOI: 10.1016/j.mri.2020.12.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2020] [Revised: 12/01/2020] [Accepted: 12/06/2020] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Connectomics identifies brain networks in vivo in resting state functional MRI. However, the presence of noise produces spurious identification of brain networks, which have low test-retest reliability. A Network Based Statistics approach to network identification has been previously proposed that affords much better statistical power relative to Bonferroni method but nevertheless provides a sufficiently conservative, family-wise control for false positives. We propose the use of Random Matrix Theory (RMT) to discover brain networks and to associate those networks with demographic and clinical variables. We parcellated the brain into cortical and subcortical regions using either an anatomical or a functional brain atlas. We applied RMT to study functional connectivity across brain regions by first computing the correlation matrix for time courses in those brain regions and then identifying eigenvalues that deviate from the theoretical random distribution that RMT predicts, on the assumption that real brain networks would produce eigenvalues that differ significantly from the random distribution. We assessed the specificity and test-retest reliability of identified networks through application of this RMT-based approach to (1) synthetic data generated under the null-hypothesis, (2) resting state functional MRI data from 4 real-world cohorts of patients and healthy controls, and (3) synthetic data generated by the addition of increasing amounts of noise to real-world datasets. Our findings showed that RMT method was robust to the atlas used for parcellating the brain and did not discover a brain network in synthetic data when in fact a network was not present (i.e., specificity was high); RMT-identified networks in the real-world dataset had high test-retest reliability; and RMT-based method consistently discovered the same network in the presence of increasing noise in the real-world dataset.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ravi Bansal
- Institute for the Developing Mind, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, CA 90027, USA; Department of Pediatrics, Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA.
| | - Bradley S Peterson
- Institute for the Developing Mind, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, CA 90027, USA; Department of Psychiatry, Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
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48
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Lerma-Usabiaga G, Mukherjee P, Perry ML, Wandell BA. Data-science ready, multisite, human diffusion MRI white-matter-tract statistics. Sci Data 2020; 7:422. [PMID: 33257659 PMCID: PMC7705748 DOI: 10.1038/s41597-020-00760-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/13/2020] [Accepted: 11/12/2020] [Indexed: 02/08/2023] Open
Abstract
The white matter tracts in the living human brain are critical for healthy function, and the diffusion MRI measured in these tracts is correlated with diverse behavioral measures. The technical skills required to analyze diffusion MRI data are complex: data acquisition requires MRI sequence development and acquisition expertise, analyzing raw-data into meaningful summary statistics requires computational neuroimaging and neuroanatomy expertise. The human white matter study field will advance faster if the tract summaries are available in plain data-science-ready format for non-diffusion MRI experts, such as statisticians, computer graphic researchers or data scientists in general. Here, we share a curated and processed dataset from three different MRI centers in a format that is data-science ready. The multisite data we share include measures of within and between MRI center variation in white-matter-tract diffusion measurements. Along with the dataset description and summary statistics, we describe the state-of-the-art computational system that guarantees reproducibility and provenance from the original scanner output.
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Affiliation(s)
- Garikoitz Lerma-Usabiaga
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Jordan Hall Building, 94305, Stanford, California, USA.
- BCBL. Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Mikeletegi Pasealekua 69, Donostia - San Sebastián, 20009, Gipuzkoa, Spain.
- Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, 94305, Stanford, California, USA.
| | - Pratik Mukherjee
- Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA
- Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA
| | - Michael L Perry
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Jordan Hall Building, 94305, Stanford, California, USA
| | - Brian A Wandell
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Jordan Hall Building, 94305, Stanford, California, USA
- Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, 94305, Stanford, California, USA
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Frigo M, Deslauriers-Gauthier S, Parker D, Ould Ismail AA, Kim JJ, Verma R, Deriche R. Diffusion MRI tractography filtering techniques change the topology of structural connectomes. J Neural Eng 2020; 17. [PMID: 33075758 DOI: 10.1088/1741-2552/abc29b] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2019] [Accepted: 10/19/2020] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE The use of non-invasive techniques for the estimation of structural brain networks (i.e. connectomes) opened the door to large-scale investigations on the functioning and the architecture of the brain, unveiling the link between neurological disorders and topological changes of the brain network. This study aims at assessing if and how the topology of structural connectomes estimated non-invasively with diffusion MRI is affected by the employment of tractography filtering techniques in structural connectomic pipelines. Additionally, this work investigates the robustness of topological descriptors of filtered connectomes to the common practice of density-based thresholding. APPROACH We investigate the changes in global efficiency, characteristic path length, modularity and clustering coefficient on filtered connectomes obtained with the spherical deconvolution informed filtering of tractograms and using the convex optimization modelling for microstructure informed tractography. The analysis is performed on both healthy subjects and patients affected by traumatic brain injury and with an assessment of the robustness of the computed graph-theoretical measures with respect to density-based thresholding of the connectome. MAIN RESULT Our results demonstrate that tractography filtering techniques change the topology of brain networks, and thus alter network metrics both in the pathological and the healthy cases. Moreover, the measures are shown to be robust to density-based thresholding. SIGNIFICANCE The present work highlights how the inclusion of tractography filtering techniques in connectomic pipelines requires extra caution as they systematically change the network topology both in healthy subjects and patients affected by traumatic brain injury. Finally, the practice of low-to-moderate density-based thresholding of the connectomes is confirmed to have negligible effects on the topological analysis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matteo Frigo
- Athena Project Team, Université Cote D'Azur, Inria Sophia Antipolis Mediterranean Research Centre, Sophia Antipolis, FRANCE
| | - Samuel Deslauriers-Gauthier
- Athena Project Team, Université Cote D'Azur, Inria Sophia Antipolis Mediterranean Research Centre, Sophia Antipolis, FRANCE
| | - Drew Parker
- Penn Applied Connectomics and Imaging Group, Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, UNITED STATES
| | - Abdol Aziz Ould Ismail
- Penn Applied Connectomics and Imaging Group, Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, UNITED STATES
| | - Junghoon John Kim
- Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Biomedical Sciences, CUNY School of Medicine, New York, New York, UNITED STATES
| | - Ragini Verma
- Penn Applied Connectomics and Imaging Group, Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, UNITED STATES
| | - Rachid Deriche
- Athena Project Team, Université Cote D'Azur, Inria Sophia Antipolis Mediterranean Research Centre, Sophia Antipolis, FRANCE
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50
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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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