High angular resolution susceptibility imaging and estimation of fiber orientation distribution functions in primate brain
Dimitrios G. Gkotsoulias,
Roland Müller,
Carsten Jäger,
Torsten Schlumm,
Toralf Mildner,
Cornelius Eichner,
André Pampel,
Jennifer Jaffe,
Tobias Gräßle,
Niklas Alsleben,
Jingjia Chen,
Catherine Crockford,
Roman Wittig,
Chunlei Liu,
Harald E. Möller
Affiliations
Dimitrios G. Gkotsoulias
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Methods & Development Group, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Corresponding author at: Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstraße 1A, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
Roland Müller
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Methods & Development Group, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
Carsten Jäger
Department of Neurophysics, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
Torsten Schlumm
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Methods & Development Group, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
Toralf Mildner
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Methods & Development Group, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
Cornelius Eichner
Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
André Pampel
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Methods & Development Group, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
Jennifer Jaffe
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany; Taï Chimpanzee Project, Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d'Ivoire, Côte d'Ivoire
Tobias Gräßle
Taï Chimpanzee Project, Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d'Ivoire, Côte d'Ivoire; Helmholtz Institute for One Health, Greifswald, Germany; Robert Koch Institute, Epidemiology of Highly Pathogenic Microorganisms, Berlin, Germany
Niklas Alsleben
Department of Neurophysics, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
Jingjia Chen
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
Catherine Crockford
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany; Taï Chimpanzee Project, Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d'Ivoire, Côte d'Ivoire; Institute of Cognitive Sciences, CNRS UMR5229 University of Lyon, Bron, France
Roman Wittig
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany; Taï Chimpanzee Project, Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d'Ivoire, Côte d'Ivoire; Institute of Cognitive Sciences, CNRS UMR5229 University of Lyon, Bron, France
Chunlei Liu
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA; Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
Harald E. Möller
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Methods & Development Group, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
Uncovering brain-tissue microstructure including axonal characteristics is a major neuroimaging research focus. Within this scope, anisotropic properties of magnetic susceptibility in white matter have been successfully employed to estimate primary axonal trajectories using mono-tensorial models. However, anisotropic susceptibility has not yet been considered for modeling more complex fiber structures within a voxel, such as intersecting bundles, or an estimation of orientation distribution functions (ODFs). This information is routinely obtained by high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) techniques. In applications to fixed tissue, however, diffusion-weighted imaging suffers from an inherently low signal-to-noise ratio and limited spatial resolution, leading to high demands on the performance of the gradient system in order to mitigate these limitations. In the current work, high angular resolution susceptibility imaging (HARSI) is proposed as a novel, phase-based methodology to estimate ODFs. A multiple gradient-echo dataset was acquired in an entire fixed chimpanzee brain at 61 orientations by reorienting the specimen in the magnetic field. The constant solid angle method was adapted for estimating phase-based ODFs. HARDI data were also acquired for comparison. HARSI yielded information on whole-brain fiber architecture, including identification of peaks of multiple bundles that resembled features of the HARDI results. Distinct differences between both methods suggest that susceptibility properties may offer complementary microstructural information. These proof-of-concept results indicate a potential to study the axonal organization in post-mortem primate and human brain at high resolution.
