title: Automatic Segmentation of Human Cortical Layer-Complexes and Architectural Areas UsingEx vivoDiffusion MRI and Its Validation.
abstract: Recently, several magnetic resonance imaging contrast mechanisms have been shown to distinguish cortical substructure corresponding to selected cortical layers. Here, we investigate cortical layer and area differentiation by automatized unsupervised clustering of high-resolution diffusion MRI data. Several groups of adjacent layers could be distinguished in human primary motor and premotor cortex. We then used the signature of diffusion MRI signals along cortical depth as a criterion to detect area boundaries and find borders at which the signature changes abruptly. We validate our clustering results by histological analysis of the same tissue. These results confirm earlier studies which show that diffusion MRI can probe layer-specific intracortical fiber organization and, moreover, suggests that it contains enough information to automatically classify architecturally distinct cortical areas. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the automatic clustering approach and its appeal for MR-based cortical histology.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht UniversityMaastricht, Netherlands; Research Centre Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-4)Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: Matteo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bastiani
authors.affiliation: Research Centre Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-4) Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: Ana-Maria
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Oros-Peusquens
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht UniversityMaastricht, Netherlands; Department of Biology, TU DarmstadtDarmstadt, Germany.
authors.forename: Arne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Seehaus
authors.affiliation: Research Centre Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-4) Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Brenner
authors.affiliation: Research Centre Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-4) Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Möllenhoff
authors.affiliation: Research Centre Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-4) Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: Avdo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Celik
authors.affiliation: Research Centre Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-4) Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: Jörg
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Felder
authors.affiliation: Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Goethe University Frankfurt Frankfurt, Germany.
authors.forename: Hansjürgen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bratzke
authors.affiliation: Research Centre Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-4)Jülich, Germany; Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Jülich Aachen Research Alliance, RWTH Aachen UniversityAachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Nadim J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Shah
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, TU Darmstadt Darmstadt, Germany.
authors.forename: Ralf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Galuske
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht UniversityMaastricht, Netherlands; Department of Neuroimaging and Neuromodeling, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience - KNAWAmsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Rainer
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Goebel
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University Maastricht, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Alard
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Roebroeck
keywords: MR-based histology; cortical layers and areas; diffusion MRI; histological validation; ultra-high field MRI