Hippocampal subfield volumes across the healthy lifespan and the effects of MR sequence on estimates
Aurélie Bussy,
Eric Plitman,
Raihaan Patel,
Stephanie Tullo,
Alyssa Salaciak,
Saashi A. Bedford,
Sarah Farzin,
Marie-Lise Béland,
Vanessa Valiquette,
Christina Kazazian,
Christine Lucas Tardif,
Gabriel A. Devenyi,
M. Mallar Chakravarty
Affiliations
Aurélie Bussy
Computional Brain Anatomy (CoBrA) Laboratory, Cerebral Imaging Centre, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada; Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University, Montreal, Canada; Corresponding authors at: Computional Brain Anatomy (CoBrA) Laboratory, Cerebral Imaging Centre, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada.
Eric Plitman
Computional Brain Anatomy (CoBrA) Laboratory, Cerebral Imaging Centre, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada; Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
Raihaan Patel
Computional Brain Anatomy (CoBrA) Laboratory, Cerebral Imaging Centre, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada; Department of Biological and Biomedical Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
Stephanie Tullo
Computional Brain Anatomy (CoBrA) Laboratory, Cerebral Imaging Centre, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada; Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Alyssa Salaciak
Computional Brain Anatomy (CoBrA) Laboratory, Cerebral Imaging Centre, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada
Saashi A. Bedford
Computional Brain Anatomy (CoBrA) Laboratory, Cerebral Imaging Centre, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada; Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
Sarah Farzin
Computional Brain Anatomy (CoBrA) Laboratory, Cerebral Imaging Centre, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada
Marie-Lise Béland
Computional Brain Anatomy (CoBrA) Laboratory, Cerebral Imaging Centre, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada
Vanessa Valiquette
Computional Brain Anatomy (CoBrA) Laboratory, Cerebral Imaging Centre, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada; Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Christina Kazazian
Computional Brain Anatomy (CoBrA) Laboratory, Cerebral Imaging Centre, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada
Christine Lucas Tardif
Department of Biological and Biomedical Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada; McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, Montreal Neurological Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada; Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
Gabriel A. Devenyi
Computional Brain Anatomy (CoBrA) Laboratory, Cerebral Imaging Centre, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada; Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
M. Mallar Chakravarty
Computional Brain Anatomy (CoBrA) Laboratory, Cerebral Imaging Centre, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada; Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University, Montreal, Canada; Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada; Department of Biological and Biomedical Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada; Corresponding authors at: Computional Brain Anatomy (CoBrA) Laboratory, Cerebral Imaging Centre, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada.
The hippocampus has been extensively studied in various neuropsychiatric disorders throughout the lifespan. However, inconsistent results have been reported with respect to which subfield volumes are most related to age. Here, we investigate whether these discrepancies may be explained by experimental design differences that exist between studies. Multiple datasets were used to collect 1690 magnetic resonance scans from healthy individuals aged 18–95 years old. Standard T1-weighted (T1w; MPRAGE sequence, 1 mm3 voxels), high-resolution T2-weighted (T2w; SPACE sequence, 0.64 mm3 voxels) and slab T2-weighted (Slab; 2D turbo spin echo, 0.4 × 0.4 × 2 mm3 voxels) images were included. The MAGeT Brain algorithm was used for segmentation of the hippocampal grey matter (GM) subfields and peri-hippocampal white matter (WM) subregions. Linear mixed-effect models and Akaike information criterion were used to examine linear, second or third order natural splines relationship between hippocampal volumes and age. We demonstrated that stratum radiatum/lacunosum/moleculare and fornix subregions expressed the highest relative volumetric decrease, while the cornus ammonis 1 presented a relative volumetric preservation of its volume with age. We also found that volumes extracted from slab images demonstrated different age-related relationships compared to volumes extracted from T1w and T2w images. The current work suggests that although T1w, T2w and slab derived subfield volumetric outputs are largely homologous, modality choice plays a meaningful role in the volumetric estimation of the hippocampal subfields.