Abstract
The vascular organization of the human brain can determine neurological and neurophysiological functions, yet thus far it has not been comprehensively mapped. Aging and diseases such as dementia are known to be associated with changes to the vasculature and normative data could help detect these vascular changes in neuroimaging studies. Furthermore, given the well-known impact of venous vessels on the blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal, information about the common location of veins could help detect biases in existing datasets. In this work, a quantitative atlas of the venous vasculature using quantitative susceptibility maps (QSM) acquired with a 0.6-mm isotropic resolution is presented. The Venous Neuroanatomy (VENAT) atlas was created from 5 repeated 7 Tesla MRI measurements in young and healthy volunteers (n = 20, 10 females, mean age = 25.1 ± 2.5 years) using a two-step registration method on 3D segmentations of the venous vasculature. This cerebral vein atlas includes the average vessel location, diameter (mean: 0.84 ± 0.33 mm) and curvature (0.11 ± 0.05 mm−1) from all participants and provides an in vivo measure of the angio-architectonic organization of the human brain and its variability. This atlas can be used as a basis to understand changes in the vasculature during aging and neurodegeneration, as well as vascular and physiological effects in neuroimaging.
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Acknowledgement
The authors thank Domenica Wilfling and Elisabeth Wladimirov for their help with data acquisition and logistics of the multi-modal plasticity initiative (mMPI) dataset. This work was supported by the Max Planck Society, the Canadian National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (RGPIN-2015-04665, C.J.G.), the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (N.I.A. C.J.G.), the National Institute of Health (1K99NS102884, A.P.F.), the Michal and Renata Hornstein Chair in Cardiovascular Imaging (C.J.G.), and the Quebec Bio-Imaging Network (QBIN) for the scholarship for Training course abroad (J.H.).
Funding
This study was funded by the Max Planck Society, the Canadian National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (RGPIN-2015-04665, C.J.G.), the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (N.I.A. C.J.G.), the National Institute of Health (1K99NS102884, A.P.F.) and the Quebec Bio-Imaging Network (QBIN) for the scholarship for Training course abroad (J.H.).
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The author Yvonne Wanner has an affiliation with Universität Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany and with the Concordia University, Department of Physics, Montreal, Canada. The author Arno Villringer has an affiliation with the Max-Planck-Institut fur Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften, Leipzig, Germany, the Clinic for Cognitive Neurology, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany, the Leipzig University Medical Centre, IFB Adiposity Diseases, Leipzig, Germany, and the Leipzig University Medical Centre, Collaborative Research Centre 1052-A5, Leipzig, Germany, The author Christopher J. Steele has an affiliation with the Concordia University, Department of Psychology, Montreal, Canada and the Max-Planck-Institut fur Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften, Leipzig, Germany. The author Christine L. Tardif has an affiliation with the McGill University, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Montreal, Canada and the Montreal Neurological Institute, Montreal, Canada. The author Pierre-Louis Bazin has as affiliation with the University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Amsterdam, Netherlands and the Max-Planck-Institut fur Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften, Leipzig, Germany. The author Claudine J. Gauthier has an affiliation with Concordia University, Department of Physics, Montreal, Canada and the Montreal Heart Institute, Montreal, Canada.
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Huck, J., Wanner, Y., Fan, A.P. et al. High resolution atlas of the venous brain vasculature from 7 T quantitative susceptibility maps. Brain Struct Funct 224, 2467–2485 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-019-01919-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-019-01919-4