TY - JOUR
T1 - Assessing intracortical myelin in the living human brain using myelinated cortical thickness
AU - Rowley, Christopher D.
AU - Bazin, Pierre Louis
AU - Tardif, Christine L.
AU - Sehmbi, Manpreet
AU - Hashim, Eyesha
AU - Zaharieva, Nadejda
AU - Minuzzi, Luciano
AU - Frey, Benicio N.
AU - Bock, Nicholas A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Rowley, Bazin, Tardif, Sehmbi, Hashim, Zaharieva, Minuzzi, Frey and Bock.
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Alterations in the myelination of the cerebral cortex may underlie abnormal cortical function in a variety of brain diseases. Here, we describe a technique for investigating changes in intracortical myelin in clinical populations on the basis of cortical thickness measurements with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 3 Tesla. For this, we separately compute the thickness of the shallower, lightly myelinated portion of the cortex and its deeper, heavily myelinated portion (referred to herein as unmyelinated and myelinated cortex, respectively). Our expectation is that the thickness of the myelinated cortex will be a specific biomarker for disruptions in myeloarchitecture. We show representative atlases of total cortical thickness, T, unmyelinated cortical thickness, G, and myelinated cortical thickness, M, for a healthy group of 20 female subjects. We further demonstrate myelinated cortical thickness measurements in a preliminary clinical study of 10 bipolar disorder type-I subjects and 10 healthy controls, and report significant decreases in the middle frontal gyrus in T, G, and M in the disorder, with the largest percentage change occurring in M. This study highlights the potential of myelinated cortical thickness measurements for investigating intracortical myelin involvement in brain disease at clinically relevant field strengths and resolutions.
AB - Alterations in the myelination of the cerebral cortex may underlie abnormal cortical function in a variety of brain diseases. Here, we describe a technique for investigating changes in intracortical myelin in clinical populations on the basis of cortical thickness measurements with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 3 Tesla. For this, we separately compute the thickness of the shallower, lightly myelinated portion of the cortex and its deeper, heavily myelinated portion (referred to herein as unmyelinated and myelinated cortex, respectively). Our expectation is that the thickness of the myelinated cortex will be a specific biomarker for disruptions in myeloarchitecture. We show representative atlases of total cortical thickness, T, unmyelinated cortical thickness, G, and myelinated cortical thickness, M, for a healthy group of 20 female subjects. We further demonstrate myelinated cortical thickness measurements in a preliminary clinical study of 10 bipolar disorder type-I subjects and 10 healthy controls, and report significant decreases in the middle frontal gyrus in T, G, and M in the disorder, with the largest percentage change occurring in M. This study highlights the potential of myelinated cortical thickness measurements for investigating intracortical myelin involvement in brain disease at clinically relevant field strengths and resolutions.
KW - Bipolar disorder
KW - Cerebral cortex
KW - Cortical thickness
KW - Magnetic resonance imaging
KW - Myelin
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U2 - 10.3389/fnins.2015.00396
DO - 10.3389/fnins.2015.00396
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84946546802
SN - 1662-4548
VL - 9
JO - Frontiers in Neuroscience
JF - Frontiers in Neuroscience
IS - OCT
M1 - 396
ER -