Center for Health Sciences, SRI International, Menlo Park, California, USA.
Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2023 Feb 1;44(2):612-628. doi: 10.1002/hbm.26088. Epub 2022 Oct 1.
Specific thalamic nuclei are implicated in healthy aging and age-related neurodegenerative diseases. However, few methods are available for robust automated segmentation of thalamic nuclei. The threefold aims of this study were to validate the use of a modified thalamic nuclei segmentation method on standard T1 MRI data, to apply this method to quantify age-related volume declines, and to test functional meaningfulness by predicting performance on motor testing. A modified version of THalamus Optimized Multi-Atlas Segmentation (THOMAS) generated 22 unilateral thalamic nuclei. For validation, we compared nuclear volumes obtained from THOMAS parcellation of white-matter-nulled (WMn) MRI data to T1 MRI data in 45 participants. To examine the effects of age/sex on thalamic nuclear volumes, T1 MRI available from a second data set of 121 men and 117 women, ages 20-86 years, were segmented using THOMAS. To test for functional ramifications, composite regions and constituent nuclei were correlated with Grooved Pegboard test scores. THOMAS on standard T1 data showed significant quantitative agreement with THOMAS from WMn data, especially for larger nuclei. Sex differences revealing larger volumes in men than women were accounted for by adjustment with supratentorial intracranial volume (sICV). Significant sICV-adjusted correlations between age and thalamic nuclear volumes were detected in 20 of the 22 unilateral nuclei and whole thalamus. Composite Posterior and Ventral regions and Ventral Anterior/Pulvinar nuclei correlated selectively with higher scores from the eye-hand coordination task. These results support the use of THOMAS for standard T1-weighted data as adequately robust for thalamic nuclear parcellation.
特定的丘脑核与健康衰老和与年龄相关的神经退行性疾病有关。然而，很少有方法可用于稳健地自动分割丘脑核。本研究的三个目的是验证在标准 T1 MRI 数据上使用改良的丘脑核分割方法的有效性，应用该方法量化与年龄相关的体积下降，并通过预测运动测试表现来测试功能意义。改良的丘脑优化多图谱分割（THOMAS）生成了 22 个单侧丘脑核。为了验证，我们将从 THOMAS 分割的白质消除（WMn）MRI 数据中获得的核体积与 45 名参与者的 T1 MRI 数据进行了比较。为了研究年龄/性别对丘脑核体积的影响，我们使用 THOMAS 对第二个数据集的 121 名男性和 117 名女性的 T1 MRI 进行了分割，这些参与者的年龄在 20-86 岁之间。为了测试功能后果，复合区域和组成核与槽钉板测试得分相关。标准 T1 数据上的 THOMAS 与 WMn 数据上的 THOMAS 显示出显著的定量一致性，尤其是对于较大的核。性别差异表明男性的体积大于女性，这可以通过调整颅内容积（sICV）来解释。在 22 个单侧核和整个丘脑中有 20 个检测到年龄与丘脑核体积之间具有显著的 sICV 调整相关性。后复合区和腹侧区以及腹前/豆状核与眼手协调任务的高分呈选择性相关。这些结果支持使用 THOMAS 对标准 T1 加权数据进行分割，认为其对于丘脑核分割来说足够稳健。
