The habenula is a small but important nucleus located next to the third ventricle in front of the pineal body. It helps to control the human reward system and is considered to play a key role in emotion, showing increased activation in major depressive disorders. Its dysfunction may underlie several neurological and psychiatric disorders. It is now possible to visualize the habenula and its anatomical subdivisions-medial habenula (MHB) and lateral habenula (LHB)-using MR techniques. The aim of this study was to further differentiate substructures within human lateral habenula (LHB) using ex vivo ultra-high field MR structural imaging, distinguishing between a medial part (m-LHB) and a lateral part (l-LHB). High resolution T1w images with 0.3-mm isotropic resolution and T2(*)w images with 60-micrometer isotropic resolution were acquired on a 7T MR scanner and quantitative maps of T1 and T2(*) were calculated. Cluster analysis of image intensity was performed using the Fuzzy and Noise Tolerant Adaptive Segmentation Method (FANTASM) tool. Ultra-high resolution structural MRI of ex vivo brain tissue at 7T provided sufficient SNR and contrast to discriminate the medial and lateral habenular nuclei. Heterogeneity was observed in the lateral habenula (LHB) nuclei, with clear distinctions between lateral and medial parts (m-LHB, l-LHB) and with the neighboring medial habenula (MHB). Clustering analysis based on the T1 and T2(*) maps strongly showed 4-6 clusters as subcomponents of lateral and medial habenula.
Pubmed ID: 24391571 RIS Download
Publication data is provided by the National Library of Medicine ® and PubMed ®. Data is retrieved from PubMed ® on a weekly schedule. For terms and conditions see the National Library of Medicine Terms and Conditions.
Software library of image analysis and statistical tools for fMRI, MRI and DTI brain imaging data. Include registration, atlases, diffusion MRI tools for parameter reconstruction and probabilistic taractography, and viewer. Several brain atlases, integrated into FSLView and Featquery, allow viewing of structural and cytoarchitectonic standard space labels and probability maps for cortical and subcortical structures and white matter tracts. Includes Harvard-Oxford cortical and subcortical structural atlases, Julich histological atlas, JHU DTI-based white-matter atlases, Oxford thalamic connectivity atlas, Talairach atlas, MNI structural atlas, and Cerebellum atlas.
View all literature mentionsA collection of software plug-ins developed for the automatic segmentation of magnetic resonance brain images. The tools include multiple published algorithms developed at Johns Hopkins University. The SPECTRE algorithm performs brain extraction. The TOADS algorithm generates a topology-preserving tissue classification into cortical, subcortical, and cerebellar structures. The CRUISE algorithm produces inner, central, and outer cortical surfaces suitable for computing thickness and other geometric measures. Tools are also included for performing gyral labeling, lesion segmentation, thickness computation, surface visualization, and surface file conversion. All tools are released as plug-ins for the MIPAV software package and were developed using the Java Image Science Toolkit (both available at NITRC: http://nitrc.org). They are therefore cross-platform and compatible with a wide variety of file formats.
View all literature mentionsA Java-based application that enables quantitative analysis and visualization of medical images of numerous modalities such as DTI, PET, MRI, CT, or microscopy. Using MIPAV's standard user-interface and analysis tools, researchers at remote sites (via the internet) can easily share research data and analyses, thereby enhancing their ability to research, diagnose, monitor, and treat medical disorders. MIPAV can be run on any Java-enabled platform such as Windows, UNIX, or Macintosh OS X. Functionality includes segmentation, inter- and intra multi-modality registration, surface rendering, volume rendering and reading and writing a large number of biomedical file formats including: DICOM 3.0, Analyze, NIFTI, SPM, MINC, Phillips, GE, Zeiss, Biorad, jpeg, png, tiff, mrc, fits, interfile, and many more.
View all literature mentions