Thalamic alterations in preterm neonates and their relation to ventral striatum disturbances revealed by a combined shape and pose analysis

Abstract

Finding the neuroanatomical correlates of prematurity is vital to understanding which structures are affected, and design efficient prevention andtreatment strategy. Converging results reveal that thalamic abnormalities are important indicators of prematurity. However, little is known about the localization of the disturbance within the subnuclei of the thalamus, or on the association of altered thalamic development with other deep gray matter disturbances. Here, using brain structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), we perform a novel combined shape and pose analysis of the thalamus and ventral striatum between 17 preterm and 19 term-born neonates. We detect statistically significant surface deformations and pose changes on the thalamus andventral striatum, successfully locating the alterations on specific regions such as the anterior and ventral-anterior thalamic nuclei, and for the first time, demonstrating the feasibility of using relative pose parameters as indicators for prematurity in neonates. We also perform a set of correlation analyses between the thalamus and the ventral striatum, based on the surface and pose results. Our methods show that regional abnormalities of the thalamus are associated with alterations of the ventral striatum, possibly due to disturbed development of sharedpre-frontal connectivity. More specifically, the significantly correlated regions in these two structures point to frontal-subcortical pathways including the dorsolateral prefrontal-subcortical circuit, the lateral orbitofrontal-subcortical circuit, the motor circuit, and the oculomotor circuit. These findings reveal new insight into potential subcortical structural covariatesfor poor neurodevelopmental outcomes in the preterm population.

Brain Dysplasia Associated with Ciliary Dysfunction in Infants with Congenital Heart Disease

“…Regional brain morphometric techniques included volumetric segmentation of total intracranial CSF, cortical gray matter, cortical white matter, deep gray nuclei, brainstem and cerebellum using a neonatal and infant brain segmentation age-specific atlas customized by our group. [31–33]We further segmented total intracranial CSF into three compartments: supratentorial extra-axial CSF, infratentorial extra-axial CSF and intraventricular CSF.…”

Ventricular shape and relative position abnormalities in preterm neonates

“…The population-based template was calculated iteratively and then align to the subject's shape (Bossa et al, 2011a, Lao et al, 2014a, Lao et al, 2014b). For each structure, we computed a transformation matrix corresponding to the rotation, translation and scaling.…”

Combined morphologic and metabolic pipeline for Positron emission tomography/computed tomography based radiotherapy response evaluation in locally advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma

“…To obtain a regional correlation of pre-and post-RT tumor surfaces, GTV pre and GTV post were matched using surface-based constrained harmonic registration [14,15]. As such, shape changes were tracked within the structure-of-interest, excluding the influence of surrounding parenchyma [16]. For each surface vertex, a multivariate vector was formed using both the anatomic and metabolic components.…”

“…The anatomic component consisted of two geometrical features based on the same surface model: the normal direction, represented by the midline to surface radius , and the surface area, represented by the Jacobian of the transformation (J) from surface registration [16,17]. Two Jacobian derived metrics were used: the determinant of Jacobian (detJ) and the log-Euclidean projected deformation tensor (log JJ T ).…”

“…Two Jacobian derived metrics were used: the determinant of Jacobian (detJ) and the log-Euclidean projected deformation tensor (log JJ T ). detJ indicates the extent of warping needed to deform a surface to match its target, and log JJ T further encapsulates directional information in the deformation [15,16].…”