by Researchers have developed a suite of innovative computer tools that can analyze vast amounts of brain dissection photographs from brain banks worldwide. These tools aim to enhance our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases by linking microscopic tissue analysis with macroscopic data obtained from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. The study, published in eLife, offers an open-source solution for researchers in the neuropathology and neuroimaging field, providing convincing evidence from experiments using both real and synthetic data.
Accurately measuring the volume of different brain regions is crucial for understanding aging and neurodegenerative diseases. Traditionally, this is done using either MRI scans of living individuals or sections of brain tissue donated to brain banks after death. However, it is challenging to link the microscopic analysis of tissue with the macroscopic data obtained from MRI scans, especially since the scans are usually taken years before the individual’s death.
To address this issue, researchers propose using MRI scans of the brain after death but before the tissue sections are taken for analysis. However, only a few biobank centers have the necessary equipment and expertise for this approach. As a result, researchers often rely on qualitative estimations by analyzing brain slices to measure cortical thickness and atrophy of specific regions.
To overcome these limitations, a team of researchers led by Harshvardhan Gazula, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), has developed a suite of computational tools. These tools allow other researchers to reconstruct a 3D picture of the brain using routinely acquired dissection photographs of brain slices. The suite consists of three modules: one corrects for different perspectives and pixel sizes in the original images, another builds a 3D reconstruction of the brain using a reference point such as a 3D brain surface scan or a generic brain atlas, and the third module segments the brain reconstruction into different regions, such as the hippocampus, thalamus, and cortex.
By comparing the structure and volumes of these regions with MRI scans and microscopic data, researchers can gain insights into the changes that occur in neurodegenerative diseases. The team validated the accuracy of the tools through three steps. First, they analyzed dissection photographs from Alzheimer’s disease cases and control brains, capturing well-known patterns of Alzheimer’s disease. Second, they compared the new tool with the current gold-standard analysis method, demonstrating its superiority in filling in missing information between brain slices. Finally, the team evaluated the robustness of the algorithms by reconstructing brains using simulated MRI scans from 500 participants, showing promising results.
However, the study has certain limitations. Currently, the method can only segment the whole cortex and cannot further divide it into regions, known as ‘cortical parcellation.’ The authors are working on extending the toolset to enable cortical parcellation in the future, as measurements of regional thickness are more predictive of neuropathology.
Senior author Juan Eugenio Iglesias, an Associate Professor of Radiology at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at MGH, believes that leveraging the abundant dissection photographs available at brain banks worldwide to perform morphometry can greatly enhance our understanding of various neurodegenerative diseases. The publicly available tools developed in this study can be easily utilized by researchers, even those with minimal training. This cost-effective and time-saving link between morphometric phenotypes and neuropathological diagnosis is expected to play a crucial role in discovering new imaging markers for the study of neurodegenerative diseases.
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1. Source: Coherent Market Insights, Public sources, Desk research
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