Measuring cortical plate and subplate thickness in the human fetal brain from magnetic resonance images

从磁共振图像测量人类胎儿大脑的皮质板和亚板厚度

• 批准号: 10366327
• 负责人: Kiho Im
• 金额: $ 66.55万
• 依托单位: BOSTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-24 至 2025-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10366327
• 关键词: 37 weeks gestation; Adult; Algorithms; Animal Model; Area; Autopsy; Biological Markers; Brain; Brain Diseases; Brain imaging; Cell Size; Cerebrospinal Fluid; Cerebrum; Child; Clinical Research; Cognition Disorders; Corpus Callosum; Cortical Malformation; Data; Data Set; Development; Fetal Development; Fetus; Foundations; Future; Gene Expression; Gestational Age; Growth; Head; Human; Image; Knowledge; Lead; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Manuals; Maternal Exposure; Measurement; Measures; Methods; Microgyria; Modeling; Morphologic artifacts; Motion; Mutation; Myelin; Neural Network Simulation; Neurons; Online Systems; Onset of illness; Pattern; Perinatal Hypoxia; Pregnancy; Research; Resolution; Shapes; Site; Structure; Study models; Surface; Synapses; Techniques; Technology; Testing; Thalamic structure; Thick; Thinness; Tissues; Translations; Variant; axon guidance; base; clinical application; cognitive function; computational platform; contrast imaging; convolutional neural network; deep learning; density; developmental disease; fetal; gray matter; human fetal brain; in utero; in vivo; insight; learning strategy; neuroimaging; neuron loss; new technology; novel marker; postnatal; prenatal; prenatal therapy; reconstruction; spatiotemporal; tool

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT In the fetal brain, cortical plate (CP) thickness is thought to be related to the number and size of cells within a column, packing density, intracortical myelin, and synapses, and subplate (SP) thickness associated with the number of thalamic and cortical afferents and the amount of cortico-cortical connections. Estimation of cortical thickness postnatally with MRI has contributed greatly to our understanding of human brain development and cognitive function and disease onset and progression in various brain disorders. However, our knowledge and research of human in utero CP and SP thickness remains limited due to the lack of available techniques that automatically measure regional CP and SP thickness from fetal brain MRI. Compared to child or adult brains, fetal brains are much smaller in size and have different image contrast. Fetal brain MRI shows lower effective resolution and suffers from head motion which causes artifacts. Thus, it is challenging to extract accurate CP and SP regions and define geometrically appropriate thickness between the CP and SP surfaces. This study will develop a fully automatic pipeline to extract regional CP and SP thickness using multi-site fetal MRI datasets. We will develop the method for CP and SP segmentation with the identification of sulcal cerebrospinal fluid regions using deep convolutional neural networks. Based on the accurate segmentation, a deformable model method that is optimized and specialized for fetal brains will be developed to extract the CP and SP surfaces. CP and SP thickness will be measured based on vertex-wise correspondence between all CP and SP surfaces. We will perform reliability and sensitivity tests using different imaging subsets within the same subject and artificial data created by moving the CP and SP boundary. We will then define the growth rate of CP and SP thickness in all cortical regions in typically developing (TD) fetuses from 18 to 37 gestational weeks (GW). We hypothesize that the growth rate of CP and SP thickness, the maximum SP thickness, and/or the maximum growth GW of CP thickness will be variable across different cortical areas in TD fetuses. The growth of CP and SP thickness in fetuses with cerebral abnormalities (polymicrogyria and agenesis of corpus callosum) will be statistically compared to the growth of TD fetuses. Malformations of cortical development and cortico-cortical connections may result in altered growth of CP and SP thickness in fetuses with polymicrogyria and agenesis of corpus callosum. This study will lay the foundation for a novel biomarker that can lead to greater insight into the mechanisms of normal and altered in utero brain development. Our methods developed from the proposed study will be publicly distributed using a web-based neuroimage computation platform, which will enable more clinical applications of fetal CP and SP thickness analysis.

项目摘要/摘要 在胎儿大脑中，认为皮质板（CP）厚度被认为与细胞内的细胞数量和大小有关 柱，填料密度，皮质内髓磷脂和突触以及与该相关的子板（SP）厚度 丘脑和皮质传入的数量以及皮质皮质连接的量。皮质的估计 MRI的产后厚度为我们对人脑发育的理解做出了巨大贡献 各种脑部疾病的认知功能和疾病发作和进展。但是，我们的知识和 由于缺乏可用技术，对子宫CP和SP厚度的人类研究仍然有限 自动测量胎儿脑MRI的区域CP和SP厚度。与儿童或成人大脑相比 胎儿大脑的大小要小得多，并且具有不同的图像对比度。胎儿脑MRI显示较低的有效性 分辨率和头部运动遭受导致伪影的头部运动。因此，提取准确的CP是一项挑战 和SP区域，并定义CP和SP表面之间的几何厚度。这项研究 将开发一条全自动管道，使用多站点胎儿MRI提取区域CP和SP厚度 数据集。我们将通过识别沟来开发CP和SP分割的方法 使用深卷积神经网络的脑脊液区域。基于精确的分割， 将开发用于胎儿大脑的可变形模型方法，以提取CP 和SP表面。 CP和SP厚度将根据所有之间的顶点对应关系测量 CP和SP表面。我们将使用不同成像子集执行可靠性和灵敏度测试 通过移动CP和SP边界创建的相同主题和人工数据。然后，我们将定义增长 典型发育（TD）胎儿的所有皮质区域中CP和SP厚度的速率从18至37个妊娠 周（GW）。我们假设CP和SP厚度的增长率，最大SP厚度和/或 CP厚度的最大生长GW在TD胎儿的不同皮质区域之间将是可变的。这 CP和SP厚度的生长在胎儿患有脑异常的胎儿（多糖类和菌群发育不全 Callosum）将在统计上与TD胎儿的生长进行比较。皮质发育的畸形和 皮质皮质连接可能会导致胎儿中CP和SP厚度的生长改变。 和call体的发育不全。这项研究将为一种新型生物标志物奠定基础，该标志物可能导致 更深入地了解子宫脑发育的正常机制和改变的机制。我们的方法开发了 从拟议的研究中将使用基于Web的神经图像计算平台公开分发 这将使胎儿CP和SP厚度分析的更多临床应用。