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Construction of Spatiotemporal Infant Cortical Surface Functional Templates
Ying Huang1,2, Fan Wang1, Zhengwang Wu1
1Department of Radiology and BRIC, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention : MICCAI ... International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention
|August 5, 2021
Summary
We developed new infant brain templates for functional MRI analysis. These templates improve accuracy by using functional connectivity patterns, leading to better spatial normalization in pediatric neuroimaging.
Area of Science:
- Neuroimaging
- Developmental Neuroscience
- Computational Neuroscience
Background:
- Infant cortical surface templates are crucial for pediatric neuroimaging analysis, enabling spatial normalization of brain structures across individuals.
- Existing templates face limitations in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis due to reliance on structural attributes for alignment and averaging methods that blur functional patterns.
Purpose of the Study:
- To construct the first set of spatiotemporal infant cortical surface functional templates that accurately encode sharp functional architectures for improved fMRI analysis.
- To address limitations in existing templates by enhancing functional alignment and reducing blurring of attribute patterns.
Main Methods:
- Leveraged functional gradient density, a novel functional connectivity feature, to drive surface registration and improve inter-individual functional correspondences.
- Utilized Wasserstein barycenter to compute templates from functional gradient density maps, ensuring robustness to registration errors and preserving detailed patterns.
- Applied methods to a dataset of 207 fMRI scans from infants aged 0 to 2 years.
Main Results:
- Successfully constructed the first spatiotemporal infant cortical surface functional templates driven by functional connectivity.
- Demonstrated improved accuracy in spatial normalization for infant fMRI data compared to existing methods.
- The developed templates exhibit sharp and detailed functional attribute patterns, robust to registration inaccuracies.
Conclusions:
- The novel infant cortical functional templates are valid and accurate for pediatric neuroimaging analysis.
- These templates represent a significant advancement for infant fMRI studies, enabling more precise spatial normalization and analysis of brain function.
- The methodology provides a robust framework for creating functional brain templates across developmental stages.
