ISMRM 21st Annual Meeting & Exhibition ○ 20-26 April 2013 ○ Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
SCIENTIFIC SESSION
Cortex, Connections & Connectomes Friday 26 April 2013
Room 251 BCEF | 10:30 - 12:30 | Moderators: | Jonathan D. Clayden, Jennifer A. McNab
10:30 | 0834. | Parcellation of the Cortex Using Restricted Diffusion Properties Shani Ben Amitay1 and Yaniv Assaf1 1Department of Neurobiology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel Parcellation of the cortex is traditionally achieved by visualization of the cortical cellular architecture. In this work we aim to segment the cortex into neuro-anatomical regions based on variations in restricted diffusion properties along the cortex. We use hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) to segment the cortex based on DTI and CHARMED maps. HCA and surface based analysis of the restricted diffusion component (Fr) indicates that homologous regions share similar mean Fr values and that mean Fr differs among cortical regions. We find that CHARMED seems to be superior over DTI parameters for cortical characterization.
10:42 | 0835. | Comparison of Diffusion MRI Predictions and Histology in the Macaque Brain Stamatios N. Sotiropoulos1, Charlie Chen2, Krikor Dikranian2, Saad Jbabdi1, Timothy E.J. Behrens1, David C. Van Essen2, and Matthew F. Glasser2 1FMRIB Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfodshire, United Kingdom, 2Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology, Washington University, St Louis, MO, United States Despite the unique information that can be extracted from diffusion-weighted (DW) MRI of the living brain, validation is limited by the inherent difficulties in obtaining ground truths. Therefore, many studies have been recently conducted for developing challenging validation frameworks. Such a validation setup is presented in this abstract. We utilise histological preparation and myelin staining of slices of a macaque brain to map the neuronal fibre organisation. We then use image processing approaches to extract ground truths on certain anatomical features of the underlying fibres. Finally, we compare these features with predictions from model-based analysis of macaque DW-MRI scans.
10:54 | 0836. | Cortical Depth Dependence of the Diffusion Anisotropy in the Human Cortical Gray Matter in vivo Trong-Kha Truong1, Arnaud Guidon1, and Allen W. Song1 1Brain Imaging and Analysis Center, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States This study investigates the cortical depth dependence of diffusion anisotropy in the human cortical gray matter in vivo at 3T. A novel multi-shot constant-density spiral diffusion tensor imaging technique with inherent correction of motion-induced phase errors was used to achieve a high spatial resolution, signal-to-noise ratio, and spatial fidelity. The results show that cortical gray matter has a different principal eigenvector orientation as compared to that of adjacent white matter regions as well as a clear cortical depth dependence of the fractional anisotropy, with consistently higher values in the middle cortical layers than in the superficial and deep cortical layers.
11:06 | 0837. | Detailed Laminar Characteristics of the Human Neocortex Revealed by NODDI Michiel Kleinnijenhuis1,2, Hui Zhang3, Dirk Wiedermann4, Benno Küsters5, Anne-Marie van Cappellen van Walsum1,6, and David G. Norris2,6 1Department of Anatomy, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, Netherlands, 2Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands, 3Department of Computer Science & Centre for Medical Image Computing, University College London, London, United Kingdom, 4Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research, Cologne, Germany, 5Department of Pathology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, Netherlands, 6MIRA Institute for Biomedical Technology and Technical Medicine, Enschede, Netherlands We demonstrate that, using the multi-compartment tissue model NODDI, a fine-grained description of the laminae of the human neocortex can be achieved outperforming diffusion tensor metrics.
11:18 | 0838. | Probing Cytoarchitectural Heterogeneity in the Human Hippocampus with Oscillating Gradient Diffusion Tensor Imaging Manisha Aggarwal1, Jiangyang Zhang1, and Susumu Mori1 1Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States We investigate the effect of gradient frequency on diffusion tensor contrasts derived using oscillating-gradient diffusion MRI in the postmortem fixed human hippocampus. Using DTI data acquired at 11.7T with pulsed-gradient and oscillating-gradient diffusion sensitizing gradient waveforms (with modulation frequencies of 50, 100, and 150 Hz), distinct frequency-dependent contrasts were observed in specific layers of the human hippocampus. ADC, parallel and perpendicular diffusivity measurements showed progressive region-specific increases with increasing gradient frequency. The results demonstrate that selective sampling of the diffusion spectrum with oscillating-gradient diffusion MRI can generate contrasts that are uniquely sensitive to the cytoarchitectural heterogeneity of different layers in the hippocampus.
11:30 | 0839. | Diffusion MRI Study of Cortical Plasticity Induced by a Short Linguistic Task Shir Hofstetter1,2, Naama Friedmann1,3, and Yaniv Assaf1,2 1Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, 2Neurobiology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, 3School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel Recent DTI study found changes in diffusion indices after 2 hour training. Whether short learning experiences can induce microstructural alterations in the neocortex is unclear and requires high scanning resolution. Here we used diffusion MRI to study cortical plasticity by a short (less than 1 hour) language task (introducing new lexical items to the lexicons). Changes in diffusion were found in specific cortical region involved in language and reading. These results provide first indication of micro-structural changes in the cortex induced by a short task with high cognitive demands, and the ability of diffusion MRI to reveal such rapid modifications.
11:42 | 0840. | Tractography from Regularized High Resolution Rs-EPI Diffusion Weighted Imaging Gernot Reishofer1, Christian Langkammer2, David Porter3, Karl Koschutnig4, Margit Jehna1, Robert Merwa5, and Franz Ebner1 1Radiology, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria, 2Neurology, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria, 3MR R&D, Siemens AG, Healthcare Sector, Erlangen, Germany, 4Institute of Psychology, Universtiy of Graz, Graz, Austria, 5Medical Engineering, Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences, Linz, Austria Readout-segmented echo planar imaging (RS-EPI) with 2D navigator-based reacquisition is a new promising technique that enables the sampling of high resolution DWI with reduced susceptibility artifacts. Giving the fact that long scan times are required for high SNR due to the measurement of two or more averages, we set out to regularize the diffusion tensor from RS-EPI DWI based on one measurement. The proposed total variation based regularization algorithm is user independent since the regularization parameter is evaluated automatically and accounts for spatial varying SNR. Tractography from regularized data show a significant improvement compared to unregularized data.
11:54 | 0841. | Tractographic Threshold-Free Cluster Enhancement: Whole-Brain Statistical Analysis of Diffusion MRI Measures in the Presence of Crossing Fibres David A. Raffelt1, Robert E. Smith1, Jacques-Donald Tournier1,2, Gerard R. Ridgway3, Victor L. Villemagne4, Christopher C. Rowe4, Olivier Salvado5, and Alan Connelly1,2 1Advanced MRI Development, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 2Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 3Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, England, United Kingdom,4Department of Nuclear Medicine, Austin Health, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 5The Australian E-Health Research Centre, CSIRO, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Recent work has focused on the development of more interpretable quantitative diffusion MRI measures that can be associated with a specific fibre bundle within a voxel containing crossing fibres. Unfortunately, traditional methods for voxel-based analysis of 3D images cannot be applied to analyse these measures, since the definition of the local neighbourhood for smoothing and cluster construction is ambiguous when adjacent voxels may contain different fibre populations. We propose a novel statistical framework for whole-brain voxel-based analysis of bundle-specific diffusion MRI measures, which uses group-average fibre tractography to define the local neighbourhood for clustering and smoothing purposes.
12:06 | 0842. | HARDI and Fiber Tractography at 1 Mm Isotropic Resolution Sjoerd B. Vos1, Murat Aksoy2, Zhaoying Han2, Samantha J. Holdsworth2, Christoph Seeger2, Maclaren Julian2, Alexander Brost2, Alexander Leemans1, and Roland Bammer2 1Image Sciences Institute, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands, 2Center for Quantitative Neuroimaging, Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States By combining advanced 3D DW EPI acquisitions with high-angular resolution diffusion imaging we have created a unique DWI dataset, of 1mm true isotropic resolution with 60 diffusion weighted directions. This dataset was reconstructed to create subsets of low angular (15 and 30 directions) and lower spatial (2mm isotropic) resolution, to compare the influence of both of these factors on fiber tractography, both in a qualitative, visual, manner as well as quantitatively.
12:18 | 0843. | The CONNECT Brain Atlas of White Matter Microstructure Silvia De Santis1, Yaniv Assaf2, Sonya Bells1, Sean C. L. Deoni3, and Derek K. Jones1 1CUBRIC Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom, 2Department of Neurobiology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, 3School of Engineering, Brown University, Providence, RI, United States We have developed the first microstructural atlas that includes both DT-MRI and advanced microstructural indices. The atlas includes population means and standard deviations of multi-variate data for every voxel in MNI space, and for all major association, projection and commissural pathways which can be described and differentiated on the basis of their microstructural properties, and is meant to serve as a reference for all the experimenters interested in microstructural imaging.