A Standardized Pipeline for Examining Human Cerebellar Grey Matter Morphometry using Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Summary

A standardized pipeline is presented for examining cerebellum grey matter morphometry. The pipeline combines high-resolution, state-of-the-art approaches for optimized and automated cerebellum parcellation and voxel-based registration of the cerebellum for volumetric quantification.

Abstract

Multiple lines of research provide compelling evidence for a role of the cerebellum in a wide array of cognitive and affective functions, going far beyond its historical association with motor control. Structural and functional neuroimaging studies have further refined understanding of the functional neuroanatomy of the cerebellum beyond its anatomical divisions, highlighting the need for the examination of individual cerebellar subunits in healthy variability and neurological diseases. This paper presents a standardized pipeline for examining cerebellum grey matter morphometry that combines high-resolution, state-of-the-art approaches for optimized and automated cerebellum parcellation (Automatic Cerebellum Anatomical Parcellation using U-Net Locally Constrained Optimization; ACAPULCO) and voxel-based registration of the cerebellum (Spatially Unbiased Infra-tentorial Template; SUIT) for volumetric quantification.

The pipeline has broad applicability to a range of neurological diseases and is fully automated, with manual intervention only required for quality control of the outputs. The pipeline is freely available, with substantial accompanying documentation, and can be run on Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems. The pipeline is applied in a cohort of individuals with Friedreich ataxia (FRDA), and representative results, as well as recommendations on group-level inferential statistical analyses, are provided. This pipeline could facilitate reliability and reproducibility across the field, ultimately providing a powerful methodological approach for characterizing and tracking cerebellar structural changes in neurological diseases.

Introduction

The cerebellum is a part of the brain historically associated with motor control^1,2,3 and is thought to be integrally involved in only a small set of rare diseases, such as inherited ataxias⁴. However, converging lines of research from anatomical tracing studies in nonhuman primates, as well as human lesion and neuroimaging studies, provide compelling evidence for a role of the cerebellum in a wide array of cognitive^5,6,7, affective⁸

Protocol

NOTE: The data used in this study were part of a project approved by the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (project 7810). Participants provided written informed consent. While the pipeline can be run on Mac, Windows, or Linux operating systems, ACAPULCO, SUIT, and the QC pipelines have explicitly been tested on Linux (Ubuntu) and Mac (Catalina, Big Sur v11.0.1) operating systems.

1. Module 1: ACAPULCO (anatomical parcellation)

1. Data collection
   1. Collect 3D T1-weighted MRI images of the whole brain at a resolution of 1 mm³ or less. Isotropic voxel dimensions (typically 1 mm x ....

Results

Cerebellum parcellation (ACAPULCO)

Quality control of cerebellum parcellated masks:
The following examples demonstrate the ACAPULCO parcellated outputs and guide decision-making about a) the quality of the parcellated mask at the individual level and b) subsequent inclusion or exclusion of a particular lobule(s) from the statistical analyses. Ultimately, the decision to include or exclude a subject is subjective; examples of 'good parcellations,'.......

Discussion

The cerebellum is critical to a wide range of human motor³, cognitive⁵⁸, affective¹⁰, and language^7,59 functions and is implicated in many neurological and psychiatric diseases. The availability of a standardized and easily implementable approach for the quantification of regional cerebellar volumes will contribute to increasingly detailed 'whole-brain' structure-function mapping.......

Materials

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
ACAPULCO pipeline files	0.2.1	http://enigma.ini.usc.edu/protocols/imaging-protocols/	Please make sure to use acapulco version 0.2.1
Docker for Mac		https://docs.docker.com/desktop/mac/install/	macOS must be version 10.14 or newer Docker requires sudo priviledges Docker imposes a memory (RAM) constraint on Mac OS. To increase the RAM, open Docker Desktop, go to Preferences and click on resources. Increase the Memory to the maximum
Docker for Windows		https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-windows/install/
ENIGMA SUIT scripts		http://enigma.ini.usc.edu/protocols/imaging-protocols/
FreeSurfer	7	https://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/fswiki/DownloadAndInstall	Following variables need to be set everytime you work with Freesurfer: export FREESURFER_HOME=freesurfer _installation_directory source $FREESURFER_HOME/SetUpFreeSurfer.sh
			export SUBJECTS_DIR=path/enigma/Freesurfer
FSL (for FSLeyes). Optional	6	https://fsl.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl/fslwiki/FslInstallation
ICV pipeline files		http://enigma.ini.usc.edu/protocols/imaging-protocols/	ICV pipeline can be run in two ways: 1) with docker/singularity. You will not require additionl software; 2) without docker/singularity- this involves running the ICV script (calculate_icv.py) manually. You will require the following additional software: Python version =3.5 Python module pandas Python module fire Python module tabulate Python module Colorama
		https://github.com/Characterisation-Virtual-Laboratory/calculate_icv
MATLAB*	2019 or newer	https://au.mathworks.com/	An academic license is required
Singularity	3.7 or newer	https://www.sylabs.io/docs/	Prefered for high performance computing (HPC) clusters
SPM	12	http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/software/spm12/	Make sure spm12 and all subfolders are in your MATLAB path
SUIT Toolbox	3.4	http://www.diedrichsenlab.org/imaging/suit_download.htm	Make sure you place SUIT toolbox in spm12/toolbox directory
Troubleshooting manual and segmentation output examples		http://enigma.ini.usc.edu/protocols/imaging-protocols/
Tutorial manual and video		http://enigma.ini.usc.edu/protocols/imaging-protocols/	Manual and accompanying live demonstration provide detailed step-by-step instructions on how to run the pipeline from start to finish.
*Not freely available; an academic license is required