Constructing 4-dimensional Infant Cortical Surface Atlases

 描述（由申请人提供）：出生后早期阶段动态和关键皮质发育的神经影像学研究将极大地增加我们对正常早期大脑发育的非常有限的知识，并提供对神经发育起源和神经精神疾病异常轨迹的重要见解。在神经影像学研究中，基于皮层表面的大脑图谱在不同研究中高度折叠的皮层的标准化、分析、可视化和比较方面发挥着基础性和越来越重要的作用。现有的皮质表面图谱开发的成人和新生儿是有问题的，当用于研究动态发展的婴儿皮质，由于皮质的大小，形状和折叠程度的显着差异。同时，当用于功能区域的定位时，基于沟回界标的这些皮质表面图谱中的包裹也是有问题的，这是由于沟回模式与脑沟回标记的不良匹配。 微结构边界为了解决所有这些局限性，我们的目标是在1、3、6、9、12、18和24个月龄（目标1）时构建多尺度皮质折叠的一致性、年龄特异性人群代表性形状。为了确保4D图谱的纵向一致性，我们将利用受试者内的纵向约束来建立一致的受试者间皮质对应。为了捕捉皮层折叠的多尺度性质，我们将通过使用曲率信息的球面小波分解来表征皮层折叠。为了保证地图集中皮层折叠的清晰性和代表性，我们将开发一种稀疏表示方法来自适应地整合个体的皮层折叠。接下来，我们的目标是包裹4D婴儿皮质表面图谱到不同的区域皮质厚度，表面积和皮质局部回转（Ai 2）的动态发展轨迹的基础上。动态皮质发育轨迹反映了皮质微结构的潜在变化，从根本上决定了皮质的分子结构和功能原则，因此比传统的沟回标志更能明确发育、微结构和功能上的不同区域。最后，我们将包装我们的4D婴儿皮质表面图谱，并免费发布给社区。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Neuroimaging studies of the dynamic and critical cortex development during early postnatal stages would greatly increase our very limited knowledge on normal early brain development, and also provide important insights into neurodevelopmental origins and abnormal trajectories of neuropsychiatric disorders. In neuroimaging studies, cortical surface-based brain atlases play fundamental and increasingly important roles for normalization, analysis, visualization, and comparison of the highly-folded cortex across different studies. Existing cortical surface atlases developed for adults and neonates are problematic when used for studying the dynamic developing cortex in infants, due to dramatic differences of cortical size, shape, and folding degree. Meanwhile, parcellations in these cortical surfaces atlases based on the sulcal-gyral landmarks are also problematic when used for localization of functional regions, due to poor matching of sulcal-gyral patterns with the microstructural borders. To address all these limitations, we aim to construct longitudinally-consistent, age-specific population representative shapes of multi-scale cortical folding at 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 18 and 24 months of age (Aim 1). To ensure the longitudinal consistency of 4D atlases, we will capitalize on within- subject longitudinal constraints to establish consistent inter-subjec cortical correspondences. To capture the multi-scale nature of cortical folding, we will characterize cortical folding by using spherical wavelet decomposition of curvature information. To ensure the clarity and representativeness of cortical folding in atlases, we will develop a sparse representation method to adaptively integrate individuals' cortical folding. Next, we aim to parcellate 4D infant cortical surface atlases into distinct regions based on the dynamic developmental trajectories of cortical thickness, surface area, and cortical local gyrification (Ai 2). The dynamic cortical developmental trajectories indicate the underlying changes of microstructures, which essentially determine the molecular organization and functional principles of the cortex, and thus can better define the developmentally, microstructurally, and functionally distinct regions than the conventional sulcalgyral landmarks. Finally, we will package our 4D infant cortical surface atlases and release them freely to the community.