| 1. |
- Hudson, Lawrence N, et al.
(författare)
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The database of the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) project
- 2017
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Ingår i: Ecology and Evolution. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 2045-7758. ; 7:1, s. 145-188
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The PREDICTS project-Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)-has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used this evidence base to develop global and regional statistical models of how local biodiversity responds to these measures. We describe and make freely available this 2016 release of the database, containing more than 3.2 million records sampled at over 26,000 locations and representing over 47,000 species. We outline how the database can help in answering a range of questions in ecology and conservation biology. To our knowledge, this is the largest and most geographically and taxonomically representative database of spatial comparisons of biodiversity that has been collated to date; it will be useful to researchers and international efforts wishing to model and understand the global status of biodiversity.
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| 2. |
- Insausti, Ricardo, et al.
(författare)
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Ex vivo, in situ perfusion protocol for human brain fixation compatible with microscopy, MRI techniques, and anatomical studies
- 2023
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Neuroanatomy. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1662-5129. ; 17
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present a method for human brain fixation based on simultaneous perfusion of 4% paraformaldehyde through carotids after a flush with saline. The left carotid cannula is used to perfuse the body with 10% formalin, to allow further use of the body for anatomical research or teaching. The aim of our method is to develop a vascular fixation protocol for the human brain, by adapting protocols that are commonly used in experimental animal studies. We show that a variety of histological procedures can be carried out (cyto- and myeloarchitectonics, histochemistry, immunohistochemistry, intracellular cell injection, and electron microscopy). In addition, ex vivo, ex situ high-resolution MRI (9.4T) can be obtained in the same specimens. This procedure resulted in similar morphological features to those obtained by intravascular perfusion in experimental animals, provided that the postmortem interval was under 10 h for several of the techniques used and under 4 h in the case of intracellular injections and electron microscopy. The use of intravascular fixation of the brain inside the skull provides a fixed whole human brain, perfectly fitted to the skull, with negligible deformation compared to conventional techniques. Given this characteristic of ex vivo, in situ fixation, this procedure can probably be considered the most suitable one available for ex vivo MRI scans of the brain. We describe the compatibility of the method proposed for intravascular fixation of the human brain and fixation of the donor’s body for anatomical purposes. Thus, body donor programs can provide human brain tissue, while the remainder of the body can also be fixed for anatomical studies. Therefore, this method of human brain fixation through the carotid system optimizes the procurement of human brain tissue, allowing a greater understanding of human neurological diseases, while benefiting anatomy departments by making the remainder of the body available for teaching purposes.
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| 3. |
- Ravikumar, Sadhana, et al.
(författare)
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Ex vivo MRI atlas of the human medial temporal lobe : characterizing neurodegeneration due to tau pathology
- 2021
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Ingår i: Acta Neuropathologica Communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2051-5960. ; 9:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Tau neurofibrillary tangle (NFT) pathology in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) is closely linked to neurodegeneration, and is the early pathological change associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). To elucidate patterns of structural change in the MTL specifically associated with tau pathology, we compared high-resolution ex vivo MRI scans of human postmortem MTL specimens with histology-based pathological assessments of the MTL. MTL specimens were obtained from twenty-nine brain donors, including patients with AD, other dementias, and individuals with no known history of neurological disease. Ex vivo MRI scans were combined using a customized groupwise diffeomorphic registration approach to construct a 3D probabilistic atlas that captures the anatomical variability of the MTL. Using serial histology imaging in eleven specimens, we labelled the MTL subregions in the atlas based on cytoarchitecture. Leveraging the atlas and neuropathological ratings of tau and TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) pathology severity, morphometric analysis was performed to correlate regional MTL thickness with the severity of tau pathology, after correcting for age and TDP-43 pathology. We found significant correlations between tau pathology and thickness in the entorhinal cortex (ERC) and stratum radiatum lacunosum moleculare (SRLM). When focusing on cases with low levels of TDP-43 pathology, we found strong associations between tau pathology and thickness in the ERC, SRLM and the subiculum/cornu ammonis 1 (CA1) subfields of the hippocampus, consistent with early Braak stages.
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| 4. |
- Ravikumar, Sadhana, et al.
(författare)
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Improved Segmentation of Deep Sulci in Cortical Gray Matter Using a Deep Learning Framework Incorporating Laplace’s Equation
- 2023
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Ingår i: Information Processing in Medical Imaging - 28th International Conference, IPMI 2023, Proceedings. - 0302-9743 .- 1611-3349. - 9783031340475 ; 13939 LNCS, s. 692-704
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- When developing tools for automated cortical segmentation, the ability to produce topologically correct segmentations is important in order to compute geometrically valid morphometry measures. In practice, accurate cortical segmentation is challenged by image artifacts and the highly convoluted anatomy of the cortex itself. To address this, we propose a novel deep learning-based cortical segmentation method in which prior knowledge about the geometry of the cortex is incorporated into the network during the training process. We design a loss function which uses the theory of Laplace’s equation applied to the cortex to locally penalize unresolved boundaries between tightly folded sulci. Using an ex vivo MRI dataset of human medial temporal lobe specimens, we demonstrate that our approach outperforms baseline segmentation networks, both quantitatively and qualitatively.
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| 5. |
- Ravikumar, Sadhana, et al.
(författare)
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Postmortem imaging reveals patterns of medial temporal lobe vulnerability to tau pathology in Alzheimer’s disease
- 2024
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Ingår i: Nature Communications. - 2041-1723. ; 15:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Our current understanding of the spread and neurodegenerative effects of tau neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) within the medial temporal lobe (MTL) during the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is limited by the presence of confounding non-AD pathologies and the two-dimensional (2-D) nature of conventional histology studies. Here, we combine ex vivo MRI and serial histological imaging from 25 human MTL specimens to present a detailed, 3-D characterization of quantitative NFT burden measures in the space of a high-resolution, ex vivo atlas with cytoarchitecturally-defined subregion labels, that can be used to inform future in vivo neuroimaging studies. Average maps show a clear anterior to poster gradient in NFT distribution and a precise, spatial pattern with highest levels of NFTs found not just within the transentorhinal region but also the cornu ammonis (CA1) subfield. Additionally, we identify granular MTL regions where measures of neurodegeneration are likely to be linked to NFTs specifically, and thus potentially more sensitive as early AD biomarkers.
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| 6. |
- Ravikumar, Sadhana, et al.
(författare)
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Unfolding the Medial Temporal Lobe Cortex to Characterize Neurodegeneration Due to Alzheimer’s Disease Pathology Using Ex vivo Imaging
- 2021
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Ingår i: Machine Learning in Clinical Neuroimaging - 4th International Workshop, MLCN 2021, Held in Conjunction with MICCAI 2021, Proceedings. - Cham : Springer International Publishing. - 0302-9743 .- 1611-3349. - 9783030875855 ; 13001 LNCS, s. 3-12
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Neurofibrillary tangle (NFT) pathology in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) is closely linked to neurodegeneration, and is the early pathological change associated with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). In this work, we investigate the relationship between MTL morphometry features derived from high-resolution ex vivo imaging and histology-based measures of NFT pathology using a topological unfolding framework applied to a dataset of 18 human postmortem MTL specimens. The MTL has a complex 3D topography and exhibits a high degree of inter-subject variability in cortical folding patterns which poses a significant challenge for volumetric registration methods typically used during MRI template construction. By unfolding the MTL cortex, the proposed framework explicitly accounts for the sheet-like geometry of the MTL cortex and provides a two-dimensional reference coordinate space which can be used to implicitly register cortical folding patterns across specimens based on distance along the cortex despite large anatomical variability. Leveraging this framework in a subset of 15 specimens, we characterize the associations between NFTs and morphological features such as cortical thickness and surface curvature and identify regions in the MTL where patterns of atrophy are strongly correlated with NFT pathology.
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| 7. |
- Wuestefeld, Anika, et al.
(författare)
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Comparison of histological delineations of medial temporal lobe cortices by four independent neuroanatomy laboratories
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Ingår i: Hippocampus. - 1050-9631.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The medial temporal lobe (MTL) cortex, located adjacent to the hippocampus, is crucial for memory and prone to the accumulation of certain neuropathologies such as Alzheimer's disease neurofibrillary tau tangles. The MTL cortex is composed of several subregions which differ in their functional and cytoarchitectonic features. As neuroanatomical schools rely on different cytoarchitectonic definitions of these subregions, it is unclear to what extent their delineations of MTL cortex subregions overlap. Here, we provide an overview of cytoarchitectonic definitions of the entorhinal and parahippocampal cortices as well as Brodmann areas (BA) 35 and 36, as provided by four neuroanatomists from different laboratories, aiming to identify the rationale for overlapping and diverging delineations. Nissl-stained series were acquired from the temporal lobes of three human specimens (two right and one left hemisphere). Slices (50 μm thick) were prepared perpendicular to the long axis of the hippocampus spanning the entire longitudinal extent of the MTL cortex. Four neuroanatomists annotated MTL cortex subregions on digitized slices spaced 5 mm apart (pixel size 0.4 μm at 20× magnification). Parcellations, terminology, and border placement were compared among neuroanatomists. Cytoarchitectonic features of each subregion are described in detail. Qualitative analysis of the annotations showed higher agreement in the definitions of the entorhinal cortex and BA35, while the definitions of BA36 and the parahippocampal cortex exhibited less overlap among neuroanatomists. The degree of overlap of cytoarchitectonic definitions was partially reflected in the neuroanatomists' agreement on the respective delineations. Lower agreement in annotations was observed in transitional zones between structures where seminal cytoarchitectonic features are expressed less saliently. The results highlight that definitions and parcellations of the MTL cortex differ among neuroanatomical schools and thereby increase understanding of why these differences may arise. This work sets a crucial foundation to further advance anatomically-informed neuroimaging research on the human MTL cortex.
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| 8. |
- Roh, Hyung S., et al.
(författare)
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Integrating Color Deconvolution Thresholding and Weakly Supervised Learning for Automated Segmentation of Neurofibrillary Tangle and Neuropil Threads
- 2023
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Ingår i: Medical Imaging 2023 : Digital and Computational Pathology - Digital and Computational Pathology. - 1605-7422. - 9781510660472 ; 12471
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Abnormally phosphorylated tau proteins are known to be a major indicator of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) with strong association with memory loss and cognitive decline. Automated generation of pixel-wise accurate neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) and neuropil threads (NTs) segmentation is a challenging task, due to lack of ground truth segmentation data of these abnormal tau pathology. This problem is most prominent in the case of segmenting NTs, where the small threadlike morphology makes pixel-wise labeling a laborious task and unrealistic for large-scale studies. Lack of ground truth data poses a significant limitation for many learning-based methods to generate accurate segmentations of NFTs and NTs. This work presents an automated pipeline for pixel level segmentation of NFTs and NTs that does not rely on ground truth segmentation data. The pipeline is composed of four main steps: (1) color deconvolution is used to separate histopathology images into staining channels (DAB, Hematoxylin, and Eosin), (2) Otsu's thresholding is used on the DAB stain channel to generate pixel level segmentation of abnormal tau proteins staining, (3) a weakly-supervised learning paradigm (WildCat), using only global descriptors of images, is used to generate density maps of potential regions of NFTs and NTs, and (4) density maps and segmentations are then integrated using connected component analysis to localize NFTs and NTs in the detected tau segmentations. Our results show high global classification accuracy for NFTs (Acc:0.96) and NTs (Acc:0.91), and statistically significant distinctions when evaluating the percent area occupied of the detected NTs relative to expert ratings of NTs severity. Qualitative assessment of the NFTs and NTs results showed accurate pixel-level segmentations of the NFTs, while modest performance for NTs.
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| 9. |
- Sadaghiani, Shokufeh, et al.
(författare)
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Associations of phosphorylated tau pathology with whole-hemisphere ex vivo morphometry in 7 tesla MRI
- 2023
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Ingår i: Alzheimer's and Dementia. - : Wiley. - 1552-5260 .- 1552-5279. ; 19:6, s. 2355-2364
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Neurodegenerative disorders are associated with different pathologies that often co-occur but cannot be measured specifically with in vivo methods. Methods: Thirty-three brain hemispheres from donors with an Alzheimer's disease (AD) spectrum diagnosis underwent T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Gray matter thickness was paired with histopathology from the closest anatomic region in the contralateral hemisphere. Results: Partial Spearman correlation of phosphorylated tau and cortical thickness with TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) and α-synuclein scores, age, sex, and postmortem interval as covariates showed significant relationships in entorhinal and primary visual cortices, temporal pole, and insular and posterior cingulate gyri. Linear models including Braak stages, TDP-43 and α-synuclein scores, age, sex, and postmortem interval showed significant correlation between Braak stage and thickness in the parahippocampal gyrus, entorhinal cortex, and Broadman area 35. Conclusion: We demonstrated an association of measures of AD pathology with tissue loss in several AD regions despite a limited range of pathology in these cases. Highlights: Neurodegenerative disorders are associated with co-occurring pathologies that cannot be measured specifically with in vivo methods. Identification of the topographic patterns of these pathologies in structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may provide probabilistic biomarkers. We demonstrated the correlation of the specific patterns of tissue loss from ex vivo brain MRI with underlying pathologies detected in postmortem brain hemispheres in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) spectrum disorders. The results provide insight into the interpretation of in vivo structural MRI studies in patients with AD spectrum disorders.
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| 10. |
- Yushkevich, Paul A., et al.
(författare)
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Three-dimensional mapping of neurofibrillary tangle burden in the human medial temporal lobe
- 2021
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Ingår i: Brain. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0006-8950 .- 1460-2156. ; 144:9, s. 2784-2797
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Tau protein neurofibrillary tangles are closely linked to neuronal/synaptic loss and cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. Our knowledge of the pattern of neurofibrillary tangle progression in the human brain, critical to the development of imaging biomarkers and interpretation of in vivo imaging studies in Alzheimer's disease, is based on conventional two-dimensional histology studies that only sample the brain sparsely. To address this limitation, ex vivo MRI and dense serial histological imaging in 18 human medial temporal lobe specimens (age 75.3 ± 11.4 years, range 45 to 93) were used to construct three-dimensional quantitative maps of neurofibrillary tangle burden in the medial temporal lobe at individual and group levels. Group-level maps were obtained in the space of an in vivo brain template, and neurofibrillary tangles were measured in specific anatomical regions defined in this template. Three-dimensional maps of neurofibrillary tangle burden revealed significant variation along the anterior-posterior axis. While early neurofibrillary tangle pathology is thought to be confined to the transentorhinal region, we found similar levels of burden in this region and other medial temporal lobe subregions, including amygdala, temporopolar cortex, and subiculum/cornu ammonis 1 hippocampal subfields. Overall, the three-dimensional maps of neurofibrillary tangle burden presented here provide more complete information about the distribution of this neurodegenerative pathology in the region of the cortex where it first emerges in Alzheimer's disease, and may help inform the field about the patterns of pathology spread, as well as support development and validation of neuroimaging biomarkers.
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