Abstract
Studies into cortical thickness in psychiatric diseases based on T1-weighted MRI frequently report on aberrations in the cerebral cortex. Due to limitations in image resolution for studies conducted at conventional MRI field strengths (e.g. 3 Tesla (T)) this information cannot be used to establish which of the cortical layers may be implicated. Here we propose a new analysis method that computes one high-resolution average cortical profile per brain region extracting myeloarchitectural information from T1-weighted MRI scans that are routinely acquired at a conventional field strength. To assess this new method, we acquired standard T1-weighted scans at 3 T and compared them with state-of-the-art ultra-high resolution T1-weighted scans optimised for intracortical myelin contrast acquired at 7 T. Average cortical profiles were computed for seven different brain regions. Besides a qualitative comparison between the 3 T scans, 7 T scans, and results from literature, we tested if the results from dynamic time warping-based clustering are similar for the cortical profiles computed from 7 T and 3 T data. In addition, we quantitatively compared cortical profiles computed for V1, V2 and V7 for both 7 T and 3 T data using a priori information on their relative myelin concentration. Although qualitative comparisons show that at an individual level average profiles computed for 7 T have more pronounced features than 3 T profiles the results from the quantitative analyses suggest that average cortical profiles computed from T1-weighted scans acquired at 3 T indeed contain myeloarchitectural information similar to profiles computed from the scans acquired at 7 T. The proposed method therefore provides a step forward to study cortical myeloarchitecture in vivo at conventional magnetic field strength both in health and disease.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 181-196 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Neuroinformatics |
Volume | 16 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Apr 2018 |
Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This work was supported in part by a Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) Vidi grant 13339 (N.P.) The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. All participants signed an informed consent before participating. All experimental procedures were conducted in accordance with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki (most recently amended in 2008, Seoul), and approved by the ethics committee of the University Medical Center Utrecht.
Funders | Funder number |
---|---|
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research | |
N.P. | |
Vidi grant | |
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek | 13339, 406-15-198 |
Keywords
- 3 Tesla
- 7 Tesla
- Automatic segmentation
- Cortical profiles
- Laminar structure
- Myeloarchitectonics