Detailed T1-Weighted Profiles from the Human Cortex Measured in Vivo at 3 Tesla MRI

Bart Ferguson*, Natalia Petridou, Alessio Fracasso, Martijn P. van den Heuvel, Rachel M. Brouwer, Hilleke E. Hulshoff Pol, René S. Kahn, René C.W. Mandl

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

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 languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)181-196
Number of pages16
JournalNeuroinformatics
Volume16
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2018
Externally publishedYes

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.

FundersFunder number
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research
N.P.
Vidi grant
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek13339, 406-15-198

    Keywords

    • 3 Tesla
    • 7 Tesla
    • Automatic segmentation
    • Cortical profiles
    • Laminar structure
    • Myeloarchitectonics

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Detailed T1-Weighted Profiles from the Human Cortex Measured in Vivo at 3 Tesla MRI'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this