Spatio-temporal Patterns of Early Cortical Folding in the Human Fetal Brain

人类胎儿大脑早期皮质折叠的时空模式

• 批准号: 9188564
• 负责人: Kiho Im
• 金额: $ 22.13万
• 依托单位: BOSTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-12-01 至 2018-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9188564
• 关键词: Anatomy; Area; Birth; Boston; Brain; Cerebral sulcus; Cerebrum; Clinical; Clinical Trials; Complex; Data; Data Set; Defect; Development; Diagnosis; Fetus; Genetic; Geometry; Gestational Age; Global Change; Gold; Growth; Human; Image; Image Analysis; Individual; Investigation; Label; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Mathematics; Measurement; Modeling; Neurodevelopmental Disorder; Neurologic; Normal Range; Pattern; Pediatric Hospitals; Positioning Attribute; Process; Prospective Studies; Reading; Reference Values; Resolution; Sensitivity and Specificity; Slice; Specificity; Surface; T2 weighted imaging; Techniques; Technology; Testing; Time; Visual; Wit; base; brain abnormalities; brain malformation; clinical Diagnosis; clinically relevant; fetal; fetal diagnosis; follow up assessment; follow-up; in vivo; knowledge base; neonatal magnetic resonance imaging; nervous system disorder; novel strategies; public health relevance; spatiotemporal; tool

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Spatio-temporal patterns of early cortical folding may provide a clinically useful marker for identifying the early signs of neurodevelopmental disorders before variable and complex folding patterns appear. In vivo MRI and 2D slice-based visual inspection have been performed to assess brain cortical folding for fetal diagnosis. However, visual diagnosis may miss early folding abnormalities and quantitative and comprehensive information of the early cortical folding patterns from fetal MRI is incomplete. In addition, clinial relevance of MRI quantification of the early cortical folding has not been evaluated. The proposed project will quantify and define spatio-temporal dynamics of regional and global early cortical folding patterns in normal fetal brains, and develop a novel approach to analyze individual clinical fetal MRIs performed for neurological concerns. We will focus on early fetal brain development between 18 weeks gestational age (GA) (the earliest for routine clinical fetal MRI at Boston Children's Hospital) and 28 weeks GA using high-quality and high-resolution 3T fetal MRI. First, early cortical folds of primary sulci will be identified and anatomically labeledon the 3D cortical plate surface using advanced image post-processing techniques. We will investigate multivariate geometric and topological features (area, curvature, depth, 3D relative position and the number of folds) for each primary sulcus. Furthermore, our approach will consider not only the regional features of sulcal folds themselves but also inter-sulcal relationships to highlight the global patterning of cortical folding, which might be associated wit optimal cortical areal patterning and connections. Normal individual variability of the regional sulcal features will be determined at each GA for each primary sulcus, and their temporal dynamics will be modeled with a mathematical function. The spatio-temporal changes of global sulcal patterns will be examined using advanced spectral-based sulcal pattern matching and comparison technique. All imaging products and measurements from the normal fetal brains will be presented and freely accessible. Based on the normal dataset, we will identify and label the cerebral primary sulci, estimate GA and determine the similarity of early cortical folding patterns to the normal folding patterns in individual fetuses. The detailed information of quantitative feta MRI analysis will be correlated with a qualitative assessment of cerebral anatomy from follow- up neonatal MRI determined as a gold standard. We hypothesize that our MRI quantification will show high sensitivity and specificity, and show higher sensitivity in detecting abnormal gyrification at fetal stage compared to a qualitative fetal imaging assessment. It might provide the potential of our technology as a diagnosis assist to catch early signs of abnormal cortical growth that may be visually missed. We believe that this study will be the first step toward a practical clinical use of quantitative fetal MRI analysis for individual fetal diagnosis and will provide preliminary data for a more comprehensive prospective study and a larger clinical trial.

 描述（由申请人提供）：早期皮质折叠的时空模式可以提供临床上有用的标记物，用于在可变和复杂折叠模式出现之前识别神经发育障碍的早期体征。已经进行了体内MRI和基于2D切片的目视检查，以评估用于胎儿诊断的脑皮质折叠。然而，视觉诊断可能会错过早期折叠异常和定量和全面的信息，早期皮质折叠模式的胎儿MRI是不完整的。此外，尚未评价MRI定量早期皮质折叠的临床相关性。该项目将量化和定义正常胎儿大脑中区域和全球早期皮质折叠模式的时空动态，并开发一种新的方法来分析针对神经学问题进行的个体临床胎儿MRI。我们将使用高质量和高分辨率的3T胎儿MRI，重点关注18周胎龄（GA）（波士顿儿童医院常规临床胎儿MRI的最早时间）和28周GA之间的早期胎儿大脑发育。首先，将使用先进的图像后处理技术在3D皮质板表面上识别并解剖标记初级沟的早期皮质褶皱。我们将调查多元几何和拓扑特征（面积，曲率，深度，三维相对位置和折叠的数量）为每个初级沟。此外，我们的方法将不仅考虑脑沟褶皱本身的区域特征，而且还考虑脑沟间的关系，以突出皮质折叠的全局模式，这可能与最佳皮质区域模式和连接有关。正常的个体变异性的区域沟功能将确定在每个GA为每个主要沟，其时间动态将建模与数学函数。将使用先进的基于光谱的脑沟模式匹配和比较技术来检查全局脑沟模式的时空变化。所有来自正常胎儿大脑的成像产品和测量结果将被展示并免费获取。基于正常数据集，我们将识别和标记大脑初级沟，估计GA并确定早期皮质折叠模式的相似性 与正常胎儿的折叠模式相吻合定量胎羊MRI分析的详细信息将与来自随访新生儿MRI的脑解剖结构的定性评估相关，该评估被确定为金标准。我们假设，我们的MRI定量将显示出高灵敏度和特异性，并显示出更高的灵敏度，在胎儿期检测异常回旋相比，定性胎儿成像评估。它可能提供我们的技术作为诊断辅助的潜力，以捕捉可能被视觉错过的异常皮质生长的早期迹象。我们相信，这项研究将是胎儿MRI定量分析在个体胎儿诊断中实际临床应用的第一步，并将为更全面的前瞻性研究和更大规模的临床试验提供初步数据。