Optimization of macaque brain DMRI connectome by neuron tracing and myelin stain data

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Tuo Zhang, Northwestern Polytechnical University; Jun Kong, Emory University; Ke Jing, Nanjing University of Science & Technology; Hanbo Chen, University of Georgia; Xi Jiang, University of Georgia; Longchuan Li, Emory University; Lei Guo, Northwestern Polytechnical University; Jianfeng Lu, Nanjing University of Science & Technology; Xiaoping Hu, Emory University; Tianming Liu, University of Georgia
• Language: English
• Date: 2018-11-01
• Publisher: Elsevier: 12 months
• Publication Version: Author Accepted Manuscript (After Peer Review)
• Copyright Statement: © 2018 Elsevier Ltd
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compmedimag.2018.06.001
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics
• ISSN: 0895-6111
• Volume: 69
• Start Page: 9
• End Page: 20
• Grant/Funding Information: T Liu was supported by the NIH R01 DA-033393, NIH R01 AG-042599, NSF CAREER Award IIS-1149260, NSF BME-1302089, NSF BCS-1439051 and NSF DBI-1564736.; L Guo was supported by NSFC 61273362 and 61333017.; T Zhang was supported by NSFC 31500798, NSFC 31671005 and the fundamental research funds for the central universities.; J Kong was supported by NIH K25CA181503. L Li was supported by R21 MH105816, P50MH100029.
• Keywords: Connectome; PRIMATE CEREBRAL-CORTEX; CONNECTIONAL ORGANIZATION; WHITE-MATTER; Multi-Scale and multi-modal fusion; Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging; Engineering; Myelin stain; Engineering, Biomedical; dMRI; MRI TRACTOGRAPHY; 2ND SOMATOSENSORY AREA; Technology; STRIATE CORTEX; DIFFUSION TRACTOGRAPHY; Science & Technology; MOUSE-BRAIN; CORTICAL CONNECTIONS; PRIMARY MOTOR CORTEX; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; Tract-tracing
• Research Categories: Biology, Neuroscience; Health Sciences, Radiology

Abstract

Accurate assessment of connectional anatomy of primate brains can be an important avenue to better understand the structural and functional organization of brains. To this end, numerous connectome projects have been initiated to create a comprehensive map of the connectional anatomy over a large spatial expanse. Tractography based on diffusion MRI (dMRI) data has been used as a tool by many connectome projects in that it is widely used to visualize axonal pathways and reveal microstructural features on living brains. However, the measures obtained from dMRI are indirect inference of microstructures. This intrinsic limitation reduces the reliability of dMRI in constructing connectomes for brains. In this work, we proposed a framework to increase the accuracy of constructing a dMRI-based connectome on macaque brains by integrating meso-scale connective information from tract-tracing data and micro-scale axonal orientation information from myelin stain data. Our results suggest that this integrative framework could advance the mapping accuracy of dMRI based connections and axonal pathways, and demonstrate the prospect of the proposed framework in constructing a large-scale connectome on living primate brains.