title: Multi-contrast human neonatal brain atlas: application to normal neonate development analysis.
abstract: MRI is a sensitive method for detecting subtle anatomic abnormalities in the neonatal brain. To optimize the usefulness for neonatal and pediatric care, systematic research, based on quantitative image analysis and functional correlation, is required. Normalization-based image analysis is one of the most effective methods for image quantification and statistical comparison. However, the application of this methodology to neonatal brain MRI scans is rare. Some of the difficulties are the rapid changes in T1 and T2 contrasts and the lack of contrast between brain structures, which prohibits accurate cross-subject image registration. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which provides rich and quantitative anatomical contrast in neonate brains, is an ideal technology for normalization-based neonatal brain analysis. In this paper, we report the development of neonatal brain atlases with detailed anatomic information derived from DTI and co-registered anatomical MRI. Combined with a diffeomorphic transformation, we were able to normalize neonatal brain images to the atlas space and three-dimensionally parcellate images into 122 regions. The accuracy of the normalization was comparable to the reliability of human raters. This method was then applied to babies of 37-53 post-conceptional weeks to characterize developmental changes of the white matter, which indicated a posterior-to-anterior and a central-to-peripheral direction of maturation. We expect that future applications of this atlas will include investigations of the effect of prenatal events and the effects of preterm birth or low birth weights, as well as clinical applications, such as determining imaging biomarkers for various neurological disorders.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA. koishi@mri.jhu.edu
authors.forename: Kenichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Oishi
authors.forename: Susumu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mori
authors.forename: Pamela K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Donohue
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ernst
authors.forename: Lynn
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Buchthal
authors.forename: Andreia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Faria
authors.forename: Hangyi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Michael I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: Peter C M
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: van Zijl
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chang
mesh_terms: D000716:Anatomy, Artistic; D001271:Atlases as Topic; D001921:Brain / Q000254:growth & development*; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D007231:Infant, Newborn / Q000254:growth & development*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging