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Genc S, Ball G, Chamberland M, Raven EP, Tax CM, Ward I, Yang JYM, Palombo M, Jones DK. MRI signatures of cortical microstructure in human development align with oligodendrocyte cell-type expression. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.07.30.605934. [PMID: 39131383 PMCID: PMC11312524 DOI: 10.1101/2024.07.30.605934] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/13/2024]
Abstract
Neuroanatomical changes to the cortex during adolescence have been well documented using MRI, revealing ongoing cortical thinning and volume loss with age. However, the underlying cellular mechanisms remain elusive with conventional neuroimaging. Recent advances in MRI hardware and new biophysical models of tissue informed by diffusion MRI data hold promise for identifying the cellular changes driving these morphological observations. This study used ultra-strong gradient MRI to obtain high-resolution, in vivo estimates of cortical neurite and soma microstructure in sample of typically developing children and adolescents. Cortical neurite signal fraction, attributed to neuronal and glial processes, increased with age (mean R2 fneurite=.53, p<3.3e-11, 11.91% increase over age), while apparent soma radius decreased (mean R2 Rsoma=.48, p<4.4e-10, 1% decrease over age) across domain-specific networks. To complement these findings, developmental patterns of cortical gene expression in two independent post-mortem databases were analysed. This revealed increased expression of genes expressed in oligodendrocytes, and excitatory neurons, alongside a relative decrease in expression of genes expressed in astrocyte, microglia and endothelial cell-types. Age-related genes were significantly enriched in cortical oligodendrocytes, oligodendrocyte progenitors and Layer 5-6 neurons (pFDR<.001) and prominently expressed in adolescence and young adulthood. The spatial and temporal alignment of oligodendrocyte cell-type gene expression with neurite and soma microstructural changes suggest that ongoing cortical myelination processes contribute to adolescent cortical development. These findings highlight the role of intra-cortical myelination in cortical maturation during adolescence and into adulthood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sila Genc
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Developmental Imaging, Clinical Sciences, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
- Neuroscience Advanced Clinical Imaging Service (NACIS), Department of Neurosurgery, The Royal Children's Hospital, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
| | - Gareth Ball
- Developmental Imaging, Clinical Sciences, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
- Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
| | - Maxime Chamberland
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Eindhoven University of Technology, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
| | - Erika P Raven
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York, USA
| | - Chantal Mw Tax
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Image Sciences Institute, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Isobel Ward
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Data and Analysis for Social Care and Health, Office for National Statistics, Newport, United Kingdom
| | - Joseph Yuan-Mou Yang
- Developmental Imaging, Clinical Sciences, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
- Neuroscience Advanced Clinical Imaging Service (NACIS), Department of Neurosurgery, The Royal Children's Hospital, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
- Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
| | - Marco Palombo
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
| | - Derek K Jones
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
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Le Bihan D. From Black Holes Entropy to Consciousness: The Dimensions of the Brain Connectome. ENTROPY (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2023; 25:1645. [PMID: 38136525 PMCID: PMC10743094 DOI: 10.3390/e25121645] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/02/2023] [Revised: 11/28/2023] [Accepted: 12/06/2023] [Indexed: 12/24/2023]
Abstract
It has been shown that the theory of relativity can be applied physically to the functioning brain, so that the brain connectome should be considered as a four-dimensional spacetime entity curved by brain activity, just as gravity curves the four-dimensional spacetime of the physical world. Following the most recent developments in modern theoretical physics (black hole entropy, holographic principle, AdS/CFT duality), we conjecture that consciousness can naturally emerge from this four-dimensional brain connectome when a fifth dimension is considered, in the same way that gravity emerges from a 'flat' four-dimensional quantum world, without gravitation, present at the boundaries of a five-dimensional spacetime. This vision makes it possible to envisage quantitative signatures of consciousness based on the entropy of the connectome and the curvature of spacetime estimated from data obtained by fMRI in the resting state (nodal activity and functional connectivity) and constrained by the anatomical connectivity derived from diffusion tensor imaging.
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Affiliation(s)
- Denis Le Bihan
- NeuroSpin, Frédéric Joliot Institute for Life Sciences (Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique, CEA), Centre d’Études de Saclay, Paris-Saclay University, Bâtiment 145, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France;
- Human Brain Research Center, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
- Department of System Neuroscience, National Institutes for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki 444-8585, Japan
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