Amsterdam UMC, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Department of Anatomy and Neurosciences, Amsterdam Neuroscience, De Boelelaan 1117, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Amsterdam UMC, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Department of Anatomy and Neurosciences, Amsterdam Neuroscience, De Boelelaan 1117, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Amsterdam UMC, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Department of Psychiatry, Amsterdam Neuroscience, De Boelelaan 1117, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2021 Dec;131:466-478. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.09.044. Epub 2021 Sep 26.
The thalamus is a central brain structure crucially involved in cognitive, emotional, sensory, and motor functions and is often reported to be involved in the pathophysiology of neurological and psychiatric disorders. The functional subdivision of the thalamus warrants morphological investigation on the level of individual subnuclei. In addition to volumetric measures, the investigation of other morphological features may give additional insights into thalamic morphology. For instance, shape features offer a higher spatial resolution by revealing small, regional differences that are left undetected in volumetric analyses. In this review, we discuss the benefits and limitations of recent advances in neuroimaging techniques to investigate thalamic morphology in vivo, leading to our proposed methodology. This methodology consists of available pipelines for volume and shape analysis, focussing on the morphological features of volume, thickness, and surface area. We demonstrate this combined approach in a Parkinson's disease cohort to illustrate their complementarity. Considering our findings, we recommend a combined methodology as it allows for more sensitive investigation of thalamic morphology in clinical populations.
丘脑是大脑的一个重要结构，参与认知、情感、感觉和运动功能，并且经常被报道与神经和精神疾病的病理生理学有关。丘脑的功能细分需要对个体亚核进行形态学研究。除了体积测量外，对其他形态特征的研究也可以提供对丘脑形态的额外见解。例如，形状特征通过揭示体积分析中未检测到的小区域差异，提供更高的空间分辨率。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了最近神经影像学技术在活体研究丘脑形态方面的进展的优势和局限性，从而引出了我们提出的方法。该方法包括现有的体积和形状分析管道，重点关注体积、厚度和表面积的形态特征。我们在帕金森病队列中展示了这种联合方法，以说明它们的互补性。考虑到我们的发现，我们建议采用联合方法，因为它可以更敏感地研究临床人群中的丘脑形态。
