German Center for Vertigo and Balance Disorders (DSGZ), Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Fraunhoferstr. 20, 82152, Planegg, Germany.
Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich, Boltzmannstr. 3, 85748, Garching, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2021 Feb 8;11(1):3293. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-82716-0.
Brain atlases and templates are core tools in scientific research with increasing importance also in clinical applications. Advances in neuroimaging now allowed us to expand the atlas domain to the vestibular and auditory organ, the inner ear. In this study, we present IE-Map, an in-vivo template and atlas of the human labyrinth derived from multi-modal high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data, in a fully non-invasive manner without any contrast agent or radiation. We reconstructed a common template from 126 inner ears (63 normal subjects) and annotated it with 94 established landmarks and semi-automatic segmentations of all relevant macroscopic vestibular and auditory substructures. We validated the atlas by comparing MRI templates to a novel CT/micro-CT atlas, which we reconstructed from 21 publicly available post-mortem images of the bony labyrinth. Templates in MRI and micro-CT have a high overlap, and several key anatomical measures of the bony labyrinth in IE-Map are in line with micro-CT literature of the inner ear. A quantitative substructural analysis based on the new template, revealed a correlation of labyrinth parameters with total intracranial volume. No effects of gender or laterality were found. We provide the validated templates, atlas segmentations, surface meshes and landmark annotations as open-access material, to provide neuroscience researchers and clinicians in neurology, neurosurgery, and otorhinolaryngology with a widely applicable tool for computational neuro-otology.
脑图谱和模板是科学研究的核心工具，在临床应用中也越来越重要。神经影像学的进步现在使我们能够将图谱领域扩展到前庭和听觉器官，即内耳。在这项研究中，我们提出了 IE-Map，这是一种基于多模态高分辨率磁共振成像 (MRI) 数据的、完全非侵入性的、无需任何造影剂或辐射的人类迷路的模板和图谱。我们从 126 个内耳（63 个正常受试者）重建了一个通用模板，并使用 94 个已建立的标记和所有相关宏观前庭和听觉亚结构的半自动分割对其进行了注释。我们通过将 MRI 模板与我们从 21 个公开可用的骨骼迷路的死后 CT/微 CT 图谱重建进行比较来验证图谱。MRI 和微 CT 中的模板具有很高的重叠性，IE-Map 中骨骼迷路的几个关键解剖学测量值与内耳的微 CT 文献一致。基于新模板的定量亚结构分析显示，迷路参数与颅内总容积相关。未发现性别或侧性的影响。我们提供经过验证的模板、图谱分割、表面网格和标记注释作为开放访问材料，为神经科学研究人员和神经科、神经外科和耳鼻喉科的临床医生提供了一种广泛适用于计算神经耳科学的工具。
