Characterizing the microstructural transition at the gray matter-white matter interface: Implementation and demonstration of age-associated differences

IF 4.7 2区医学 Q1 NEUROIMAGING

NeuroImage Pub Date : 2025-02-01 DOI:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121019

Joan Y Song , Roman Fleysher , Kenny Ye , Mimi Kim , Molly E Zimmerman , Richard B Lipton , Michael L Lipton

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background

The cortical gray matter-white matter interface (GWI) is a natural transition zone where the composition of brain tissue abruptly changes and is a location for pathologic change in brain disorders. While diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) is a reliable and well-established technique to characterize brain microstructure, the GWI is difficult to assess with dMRI due to partial volume effects and is normally excluded from such studies.

Methods

In this study, we introduce an approach to characterize the dMRI microstructural profile across the GWI and to assess the sharpness of the microstructural transition from cortical gray matter (GM) to white matter (WM). This analysis includes cross-sectional data from a total of 146 participants (18–91 years; mean age: 52.4 (SD 21.4); 83 (57 %) female) enrolled in two normative lifespan cohorts at Albert Einstein College of Medicine from 2019 to 2023. We compute the aggregate GWI slope for each parameter, across each of 6 brain regions (cingulate, frontal, occipital, orbitofrontal, parietal, and temporal) for each participant. The association of GWI slope in each region with age was assessed using a linear model, with biological sex as a covariate.

Results

We demonstrate this method captures an inherent change in fractional anisotropy (FA), axial diffusivity (AD), orientation dispersion index (ODI) and intracellular volume fraction (ICVF) across the GWI that is characterized by small variance. We identified statistically significant associations of FA slope with age in all regions (p < 0.002 for all analyses), with FA slope magnitude inversely associated with higher age. Similar statistically significant age-related associations were found for AD slope in cingulate, occipital, and temporal regions, for ODI slope in parietal and occipital regions, and for ICVF slope in frontal, orbitofrontal, parietal, and temporal regions.

Conclusion

The inverse association of slope magnitude with age indicates loss of the sharp GWI transition in aging, which is consistent with processes such as dendritic pruning, axonal degeneration, and inflammation. This method overcomes techniques issues related to interrogating the GWI. Beyond characterizing normal aging, it could be applied to explore pathological effects at this crucial, yet under-researched region.

查看原文本刊更多论文

表征灰质-白质界面的微观结构转变：年龄相关差异的实现和证明。

背景：皮层灰质-白质界面（GWI）是脑组织组成突变的自然过渡区，是脑疾病病理改变的部位。虽然扩散磁共振成像（dMRI）是一种可靠且成熟的表征大脑微观结构的技术，但由于局部体积效应，dMRI很难评估GWI，通常被排除在此类研究之外。方法：在本研究中，我们引入了一种方法来表征整个GWI的dMRI微结构剖面，并评估从皮质灰质（GM）到白质（WM）的微结构转换的清晰度。该分析包括来自146名参与者的横断面数据(18-91岁；平均年龄：52.4岁（SD 21.4）；2019-2023年，83名（57%）女性在阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦医学院（Albert Einstein College of Medicine）参加了两个标准寿命队列。我们计算了每个参与者在6个大脑区域（扣带、额叶、枕叶、眶额、顶叶和颞叶）中每个参数的总GWI斜率。使用线性模型评估每个地区GWI斜率与年龄的关系，生物性别作为协变量。结果：我们证明该方法捕获了GWI中分数各向异性（FA）、轴向扩散率（AD）、取向弥散指数（ODI）和细胞内体积分数（ICVF）的固有变化，其特征是方差小。我们发现，在所有地区，FA斜率与年龄都有统计学上的显著相关性(p结论：斜率大小与年龄呈负相关，表明衰老过程中GWI的急剧转变丧失，这与树突修剪、轴突变性和炎症等过程一致。这种方法克服了与询问GWI相关的技术问题。除了表征正常衰老之外，它还可以用于探索这一关键但研究不足的区域的病理影响。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

NeuroImage 医学-核医学

CiteScore

11.30

自引率

10.50%

发文量

809

审稿时长

63 days

期刊介绍： NeuroImage, a Journal of Brain Function provides a vehicle for communicating important advances in acquiring, analyzing, and modelling neuroimaging data and in applying these techniques to the study of structure-function and brain-behavior relationships. Though the emphasis is on the macroscopic level of human brain organization, meso-and microscopic neuroimaging across all species will be considered if informative for understanding the aforementioned relationships.