Nucleus accumbens projections: Validity and reliability of fiber reconstructions based on high-resolution diffusion-weighted MRI.
Thilo RuscheJörn KaufmannJürgen VogesPublished in: Human brain mapping (2021)
Clinical effects of deep brain stimulation are largely mediated by the activation of myelinated axons. Hence, increasing attention has been paid in the past on targeting white matter tracts in addition to gray matter. Aims of the present study were: (i) visualization of discrete afferences and efferences of the nucleus accumbens (NAc), supposed to be a major hub of neural networks relating to mental disorders, using probabilistic fiber tractography and a data driven approach, and (ii) validation of the applied methodology for standardized routine clinical applications. MR-data from 11 healthy subjects and 7 measurement sessions each were acquired on a 3T MRI-scanner. For probabilistic fiber tracking the NAc as a seed region and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), amygdala (AMY), hippocampus (HPC), dorsomedial thalamus (dmT) and ventral tegmental area (VTA) as target regions were segmented for each subject and both hemispheres. To quantitatively assess the reliability and stability of the reconstructions, we filtered and clustered the individual fiber-tracts (NAc to target) for each session and subject and performed a point-by-point calculation of the maximum cluster distances for intra-subject comparison. The connectivity patterns formed by the obtained fibers were in good concordance with published data from tracer and/or fiber-dissection studies. Furthermore, the reliability assessment of the (NAc to target)-fiber-tracts yielded to high correlations between the obtained clustered-tracts. Using DBS with directional lead technology, the workflow elaborated in this study may guide selective electrical stimulation of NAc projections.
Keyphrases
- deep brain stimulation
- prefrontal cortex
- transcription factor
- contrast enhanced
- white matter
- diffusion weighted
- functional connectivity
- high resolution
- magnetic resonance imaging
- parkinson disease
- obsessive compulsive disorder
- electronic health record
- magnetic resonance
- resting state
- image quality
- spinal cord
- multiple sclerosis
- spinal cord injury
- big data
- genome wide analysis
- randomized controlled trial
- computed tomography
- systematic review
- high intensity
- working memory
- cognitive impairment
- cancer therapy
- subarachnoid hemorrhage
- meta analyses
- deep learning
- drug delivery