Direct visualization and characterization of the human zona incerta and surrounding structures

Abstract

The zona incerta (ZI) is a small deep brain region first identified in the 19th century, yet direct in 18 vivo visualization and characterization has remained elusive. Noninvasive detection is critical to further our 19 understanding of this widely connected but poorly understood region and could contribute to the 20 development and optimization of neuromodulatory therapies. We demonstrate that high resolution 21 longitudinal (T1) relaxometry measurements at high magnetic field strength can be used to delineate the ZI 22 from surrounding white matter structures (fasciculus cerebellothalamicus, fields of Forel, and medial 23 lemniscus). We derived estimates of the morphology, location, and tissue characteristics of the ZI region, 24 confirming observations only previously possible through histological evaluation, that this region is not just 25 a space between structures but contains distinct entities that should be considered separately. Our findings 26 pave the way for increasingly detailed in vivo study and provide a structural foundation for precise functional 27 investigation. 28 Nieuwenhuys et al., 2007). The rostral ZI (rZI) is continuous with the reticular nucleus of the thalamus 46 laterally and with the lateral hypothalamus anteromedially. The caudal ZI (cZI) is laterally bounded by the 47

HybraPD atlas: Towards precise subcortical nuclei segmentation using multimodality medical images in patients with Parkinson disease

“…Besides, this study is based on the 3.0 Tesla MRI data with a spatial resolution of 1 × 1 × 1 mm 3 . Recently, Lau et al has successfully used ultra‐high field 7.0 Tesla MRI data (Lau et al, 2017) for in vivo visualization of brain structures at the submillimeter scale (0.7 mm 3 isotropic), for example, investigation of zona incerta, STN and RN (Lau et al, 2020). It might be an effective protocol for imaging the complex subregions of subcortical structures from the human brain in future.…”

Charting human subcortical maturation across the adult lifespan within vivo7 T MRI

“…Stereotactic atlases based on post mortem tissue are often used for planning DBS surgery, whereas MRI atlases which provide probabilistic location estimates for individual structures are conventionally used in cognitive neuroscientific research. Subcortical MRI atlases are growing in numbers (Keuken et al, 2014; Lau et al, 2020; Pauli et al, 2018; Trutti et al, 2021; Ye et al, 2021) due to improvements in MRI resolution and contrasts. However, MRI atlases are often developed using anatomical images obtained from young participants, which can cause biases when such atlases are subsequently used to analyze data from older participants as well as patient populations (Evans et al, 2012; Keuken et al, 2013; Samanez-Larkin and D’Esposito, 2008).…”