scholarly journals Quantitative Susceptibility Atlas Construction in Montreal Neurological Institute Space: Towards Histological-consistent Iron-rich Deep Brain Nucleus Sub-region Identification

Author(s):  
Chenyu He ◽  
Xiaojun Guan ◽  
Weimin Zhang ◽  
Jun Li ◽  
Chunlei Liu ◽  
...  

Abstract Iron-rich deep brain nuclei (DBN) of the human brain are involved in various motoric, emotional and cognitive brain functions. The abnormal iron alterations in the DBN are closely associated with multiple neurological and psychiatric diseases. Quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) provides the spatial distribution of tissue magnetic susceptibility in the human brain. Compared to traditional structural imaging, QSM has superiority for imaging the iron-rich DBN owing to the susceptibility difference existing between brain tissues. In this study, we construct a Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) space unbiased QSM human brain atlas via group-wise registration from 100 healthy subjects aged 19-29 years. The atlas construction process is guided by hybrid images that fused from multi-modal Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI), thus named as Multi-modal-fused magnetic Susceptibility (MuSus-100) atlas. The high-quality susceptibility atlas provides extraordinary image contrast between iron-rich DBN with their surroundings. Parcellation maps of DBN and their sub-regions that are highly related to neurological and psychiatric pathology are then manually labeled based on the atlas set with the assistance of an image border-enhancement process. Especially, the bilateral thalamus is delineated into 64 detailed sub-regions referring to the Schaltenbrand and Wahren stereotactic atlas. To our best knowledge, the histological-consistent thalamic nucleus parcellation map is well defined for the first time in MNI space. Comparing with existing atlases emphasized on DBN parcellation, the newly proposed atlas outperforms on atlas-guided individual brain image DBN segmentation accuracy and robustness. Moreover, we apply the proposed DBN parcellation map to conduct detailed identification of the pathology-related iron content alterations in subcortical nuclei for Parkinson Disease (PD) patients. We envision that the MuSus-100 atlas could play a crucial role in improving the accuracy of DBN segmentation for the research of neurological and psychiatric disease progress and also be helpful for target planning in deep brain stimulation surgery

2006 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick B. Senatus ◽  
David Teeple ◽  
Shearwood McClelland ◽  
Seth L. Pullman ◽  
Qiping Yu ◽  
...  

Object Implantation of a subthalamic nucleus (STN) deep brain stimulation (DBS) electrode is increasingly recognized as an effective treatment for advanced Parkinson disease (PD). Despite widespread use of microelectrode recording (MER) to delineate the boundaries of the STN prior to stimulator implantation, it remains unclear to what extent MER improves the clinical efficacy of this procedure. In this report, the authors analyze a series of patients who were treated at one surgical center to determine to what degree final electrode placement was altered, based on readings obtained with MER, from the calculated anatomical target. Methods Subthalamic DBS devices were placed bilaterally in nine patients with advanced PD. Frame-based volumetric magnetic resonance images were acquired and then transferred to a stereotactic workstation to determine the anterior and posterior commissure coordinates and plane. The initial anatomical target was 4 mm anterior, 4 mm deep, and 12 mm lateral to the midcommissural point. The MERs defined the STN boundaries along one or more parallel tracks, refining the final electrode placement by comparison of results with illustrations in a stereotactic atlas. In eight of 18 electrodes, the MER results did not prompt an alteration in the anatomically derived target. In another eight placements, MER altered the target by less than 1 mm and two of 18 electrode positions differed by less than 2 mm. The anterior–posterior difference was 0.53 ± 0.65 mm, whereas the medial–lateral direction differed by 0.25 ± 0.43 mm. The ventral boundary of the STN defined by MER was 2 ± 0.72 mm below the calculated target (all values are the means ± standard deviation). All patients attained clinical improvement, similar to previous reports. Conclusions In this series of patients, microelectrode mapping of the STN altered the anatomically based target only slightly. Because it is not clear whether such minor adjustments improve clinical efficacy, a prospective clinical comparison of MER-refined and anatomical targeting may be warranted.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 4999
Author(s):  
Chung-Yoh Kim ◽  
Jin-Seo Park ◽  
Beom-Sun Chung

When performing deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus, practitioners should interpret the magnetic resonance images (MRI) correctly so they can place the DBS electrode accurately at the target without damaging the other structures. The aim of this study is to provide a real color volume model of a cadaver head that would help medical students and practitioners to better understand the sectional anatomy of DBS surgery. Sectioned images of a cadaver head were reconstructed into a real color volume model with a voxel size of 0.5 mm × 0.5 mm × 0.5 mm. According to preoperative MRIs and postoperative computed tomographys (CT) of 31 patients, a virtual DBS electrode was rendered on the volume model of a cadaver. The volume model was sectioned at the classical and oblique planes to produce real color images. In addition, segmented images of a cadaver head were formed into volume models. On the classical and oblique planes, the anatomical structures around the course of the DBS electrode were identified. The entry point, waypoint, target point, and nearby structures where the DBS electrode could be misplaced were also elucidated. The oblique planes could be understood concretely by comparing the volume model of the sectioned images with that of the segmented images. The real color and high resolution of the volume model enabled observations of minute structures even on the oblique planes. The volume models can be downloaded by users to be correlated with other patients’ data for grasping the anatomical orientation.


KronoScope ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-239
Author(s):  
Rémy Lestienne

Abstract J.T. Fraser used to emphasize the uniqueness of the human brain in its capacity for apprehending the various dimensions of “nootemporality” (Fraser 1982 and 1987). Indeed, our brain allows us to sense the flow of time, to measure delays, to remember past events or to predict future outcomes. In these achievements, the human brain reveals itself far superior to its animal counterpart. Women and men are the only beings, I believe, who are able to think about what they will do the next day. This is because such a thought implies three intellectual abilities that are proper to mankind: the capacity to take their own thoughts as objects of their thinking, the ability of mental time travels—to the past thanks to their episodic memory or to the future—and the possibility to project very far into the future, as a consequence of their enlarged and complexified forebrain. But there are severe limits to our timing abilities of which we are often unaware. Our sensibility to the passing time, like other of our intellectual abilities, is often competing with other brain functions, because they use at least in part the same neural networks. This is particularly the case regarding attention. The deeper the level of attention required, the looser is our perception of the flow of time. When we pay attention to something, when we fix our attention, then our inner sense of the flux of time freezes. This limitation should not sound too unfamiliar to the reader of J.T. Fraser who wrote in his book Time, Conflict, and Human Values (1999) about “time as a nested hierarchy of unresolvable conflicts.”


Brain ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 142 (12) ◽  
pp. 3991-4002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martijn P van den Heuvel ◽  
Lianne H Scholtens ◽  
Siemon C de Lange ◽  
Rory Pijnenburg ◽  
Wiepke Cahn ◽  
...  

See Vértes and Seidlitz (doi:10.1093/brain/awz353) for a scientific commentary on this article. Is schizophrenia a by-product of human brain evolution? By comparing the human and chimpanzee connectomes, van den Heuvel et al. demonstrate that connections unique to the human brain show greater involvement in schizophrenia pathology. Modifications in service of higher-order brain functions may have rendered the brain more vulnerable to dysfunction.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salla M Kangas ◽  
Jaakko Teppo ◽  
Maija J Lahtinen ◽  
Anu Suoranta ◽  
Bishwa M Ghimire ◽  
...  

The implantation of deep brain stimulation (DBS) electrodes into the human brain is a neurosurgical treatment for, e.g., movement disorders. We describe a novel approach to collecting brain tissue from DBS surgery-guiding instruments for liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry and RNA sequencing analyses. Proteomics and transcriptomics showed that the approach is useful for obtaining disease-specific expression data. A comparison between our improved and the previous approaches and related datasets was performed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ali Salehinejad ◽  
Miles Wischnewski ◽  
Elham Ghanavati ◽  
Mohsen Mosayebi-Samani ◽  
Min-Fang Kuo ◽  
...  

AbstractCircadian rhythms have natural relative variations among humans known as chronotype. Chronotype or being a morning or evening person, has a specific physiological, behavioural, and also genetic manifestation. Whether and how chronotype modulates human brain physiology and cognition is, however, not well understood. Here we examine how cortical excitability, neuroplasticity, and cognition are associated with chronotype in early and late chronotype individuals. We monitor motor cortical excitability, brain stimulation-induced neuroplasticity, and examine motor learning and cognitive functions at circadian-preferred and non-preferred times of day in 32 individuals. Motor learning and cognitive performance (working memory, and attention) along with their electrophysiological components are significantly enhanced at the circadian-preferred, compared to the non-preferred time. This outperformance is associated with enhanced cortical excitability (prominent cortical facilitation, diminished cortical inhibition), and long-term potentiation/depression-like plasticity. Our data show convergent findings of how chronotype can modulate human brain functions from basic physiological mechanisms to behaviour and higher-order cognition.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (7S_Part_22) ◽  
pp. P1072-P1073
Author(s):  
Arnold M. Evia ◽  
Aikaterini Kotrotsou ◽  
Robert Dawe ◽  
Sue E. Leurgans ◽  
Julie A. Schneider ◽  
...  

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