Registration-free analysis of diffusion MRI tractography data across subjects through the human lifespan

Viviana Siless; Juliet Y. Davidow; Jared Nielsen; Qiuyun Fan; Trey Hedden; Marisa Hollinshead; Elizabeth Beam; Constanza M. Vidal Bustamante; Megan C. Garrad; Rosario Santillana; Emily E. Smith; Aya Hamadeh; Jenna Snyder; Michelle K. Drews; Koene R.A. Van Dijk; Margaret Sheridan; Leah H. Somerville; Anastasia Yendiki

NeuroImage (Jul 2020)

Registration-free analysis of diffusion MRI tractography data across subjects through the human lifespan

Viviana Siless,
Juliet Y. Davidow,
Jared Nielsen,
Qiuyun Fan,
Trey Hedden,
Marisa Hollinshead,
Elizabeth Beam,
Constanza M. Vidal Bustamante,
Megan C. Garrad,
Rosario Santillana,
Emily E. Smith,
Aya Hamadeh,
Jenna Snyder,
Michelle K. Drews,
Koene R.A. Van Dijk,
Margaret Sheridan,
Leah H. Somerville,
Anastasia Yendiki

Affiliations

Viviana Siless: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Corresponding author.
Juliet Y. Davidow: Department of Psychology and Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, MA, USA
Jared Nielsen: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Psychology and Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, MA, USA
Qiuyun Fan: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
Trey Hedden: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Neurology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA
Marisa Hollinshead: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Psychology and Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, MA, USA
Elizabeth Beam: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Psychology and Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, MA, USA
Constanza M. Vidal Bustamante: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Psychology and Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, MA, USA
Megan C. Garrad: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Psychology and Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, MA, USA
Rosario Santillana: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Division of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
Emily E. Smith: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
Aya Hamadeh: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Psychology and Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, MA, USA
Jenna Snyder: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Division of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
Michelle K. Drews: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Psychology and Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, MA, USA
Koene R.A. Van Dijk: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Psychology and Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, MA, USA
Margaret Sheridan: Division of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Leah H. Somerville: Department of Psychology and Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, MA, USA
Anastasia Yendiki: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

Journal volume & issue: Vol. 214
p. 116703

Abstract

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Diffusion MRI tractography produces massive sets of streamlines that need to be clustered into anatomically meaningful white-matter bundles. Conventional clustering techniques group streamlines based on their proximity in Euclidean space. We have developed AnatomiCuts, an unsupervised method for clustering tractography streamlines based on their neighboring anatomical structures, rather than their coordinates in Euclidean space. In this work, we show that the anatomical similarity metric used in AnatomiCuts can be extended to find corresponding clusters across subjects and across hemispheres, without inter-subject or inter-hemispheric registration. Our proposed approach enables group-wise tract cluster analysis, as well as studies of hemispheric asymmetry. We evaluate our approach on data from the pilot MGH-Harvard-USC Lifespan Human Connectome project, showing improved correspondence in tract clusters across 184 subjects aged 8–90. Our method shows up to 38% improvement in the overlap of corresponding clusters when comparing subjects with large age differences. The techniques presented here do not require registration to a template and can thus be applied to populations with large inter-subject variability, e.g., due to brain development, aging, or neurological disorders.

Published in NeuroImage

ISSN: 1053-8119 (Print); 1095-9572 (Online)
Publisher: Elsevier
Country of publisher: United States
LCC subjects: Medicine: Internal medicine: Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Website: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/neuroimage

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