Kwon Dae-Hyuk, Paek Sun Ha, Kim Young-Bo, Lee Haigun, Cho Zang-Hee
Neuroscience Convergence Center, Green Manufacturing Research Center (GMRC), Korea University, Seoul, South Korea.
Neurosurgery, Movement Disorder Center, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Advanced Institute of Convergence Technology (AICT), Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea.
Front Neuroanat. 2021 Oct 27;15:739576. doi: 10.3389/fnana.2021.739576. eCollection 2021.
The output network of the basal ganglia plays an important role in motor, associative, and limbic processing and is generally characterized by the pallidothalamic and nigrothalamic pathways. However, these connections in the human brain remain difficult to elucidate because of the resolution limit of current neuroimaging techniques. The present study aimed to investigate the mesoscopic nature of these connections between the thalamus, substantia nigra pars reticulata, and globus pallidus internal segment using 7 Tesla (7T) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In this study, track-density imaging (TDI) of the whole human brain was employed to overcome the limitations of observing the pallidothalamic and nigrothalamic tracts. Owing to the super-resolution of the TD images, the substructures of the SN, as well as the associated tracts, were identified. This study demonstrates that 7T MRI and MR tractography can be used to visualize anatomical details, as well as 3D reconstruction, of the output projections of the basal ganglia.
基底神经节的输出网络在运动、联合和边缘系统处理中发挥着重要作用，其一般特征为苍白球丘脑通路和黑质丘脑通路。然而，由于当前神经成像技术的分辨率限制，人类大脑中的这些连接仍难以阐明。本研究旨在使用7特斯拉（7T）磁共振成像（MRI）研究丘脑、黑质网状部和苍白球内侧段之间这些连接的介观性质。在本研究中，采用全脑轨迹密度成像（TDI）来克服观察苍白球丘脑束和黑质丘脑束的局限性。由于TD图像的超分辨率，黑质的亚结构以及相关的束得以识别。本研究表明，7T MRI和磁共振神经成像可用于可视化基底神经节输出投射的解剖细节以及三维重建。
