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The structural connectome in children: basic concepts, how to build it, and synopsis of challenges for the developing
Avner Meoded1, Thierry A G M Huisman2, Maria Grazia Sacco Casamassima3
1Department of Radiology, Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 501 6th Avenue South, St. Petersburg, FL, 33701, USA. ameoded1@jhmi.edu.
Insights
This study details reconstructing and analyzing the pediatric structural connectome, highlighting methods for mapping brain networks in children. Key findings emphasize specific considerations for pediatric brain development in connectome research.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Brain Imaging
- Network Science
Background:
- The structural connectome maps brain networks, increasingly applied to pediatric brain research.
- Understanding the pediatric brain's structural organization is crucial for developmental neuroscience.
Purpose of the Study:
- To outline the methodology for reconstructing, analyzing, and visualizing the pediatric structural connectome.
- To highlight key technical aspects and challenges in pediatric connectome studies.
Main Methods:
- Utilizing state-of-the-art neuroimaging and post-processing techniques.
- Defining nodes (cortical regions) and edges (tractography-based associations).
- Generating adjacency matrices and applying topological measures for network characterization.
Main Results:
- Nodes represent cortical regions, and edges represent structural associations between them.
- Methods for creating and analyzing structural connectome matrices are presented.
- Various visualization techniques for pediatric structural connectomes are discussed.
Conclusions:
- Pediatric brain development, including gyrification and myelination, presents unique challenges for connectome studies.
- Specific adaptations are necessary for accurate pediatric structural connectome acquisition, reconstruction, and analysis compared to adults.
Purpose:
The structural connectome is a comprehensive structural description of the network of elements and connections forming the brain. In recent years, this framework has progressively been used to investigate the pediatric brain.
Methods:
We discuss the different steps and emphasize key technical aspects required for the successful reconstruction, analysis, and visualization of the pediatric structural connectome using current state-of-the-art neuroimaging and post-processing techniques.
Results:
The two key components of structural connectome are a node (a cortical region obtained with high-resolution anatomical imaging) and an edge (structural association between cortical regions, defined with tractography). After delineation of nodes and edges, an association matrix can be generated by compiling all pairwise associations between nodes and applying a threshold to produce a binary adjacency matrix. Several measures can be used to characterize the topological architecture of the brain's networks. Finally, we provide an overview of various visualization methods of the structural connectome in children.
Conclusion:
The human connectome is the culmination of more than a century of conceptual and methodological innovation. Biological substrates of brain development such as cortical gyration and myelination challenge the acquisition, reconstruction, and analysis of structural connectome in children and require specific considerations compared to adults.