Stereotaxic 18F-FDG PET and MRI Templates with Three-dimensional Digital Atlas for Statistical Parametric Mapping Analysis of Tree Shrew Brain

Publication date: Available online 14 September 2017
Source:Journal of Neuroscience Methods
Author(s): Qi Huang, Binbin Nie, Chen Ma, Jing Wang, Tianhao Zhang, Shaofeng Duan, Shang Wu, Shengxiang Liang, Panlong Li, Hua Liu, Hua Sun, Jiangning Zhou, Lin Xu, Baoci Shan
BackgroundTree shrews are proposed as an alternative animal model to nonhuman primates due to their close affinity to primates. Neuroimaging techniques are widely used to study brain functions and structures of humans and animals. However, tree shrews are rarely applied in neuroimaging field partly due to the lack of available species specific analysis methods.New methodIn this study, 10 PET/CT and 10 MRI images of tree shrew brain were used to construct PET and MRI templates; based on histological atlas we reconstructed a three-dimensional digital atlas with 628 structures delineated; then the digital atlas and templates were aligned into a stereotaxic space. Finally, we integrated the digital atlas and templates into a toolbox for tree shrew brain spatial normalization, statistical analysis and results localization.ResultsWe validated the feasibility of the toolbox by simulated data with lesions in laterodorsal thalamic nucleus (LD). The lesion volumes of simulated PET and MRI images were (12.97±3.91)mm³ and (7.04±0.84)mm³. Statistical results at p < 0.005 showed the lesion volumes of PET and MRI were 13.18mm³ and 8.06mm³ in LD.Comparison with existing method(s)To our knowledge, we report the first PET template and digital atlas of tree shrew brain. Compared to the existing MRI templates, our MRI template was aligned into stereotaxic space. And the toolbox is the first software dedicated for tree shrew brain analysis.ConclusionsThe templates and digital atlas of tree shrew brain, as well as the toolbox, facilitate the use of tree shrews in neuroimaging field.



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