Histological Validation of DW-MRI Tractography in Human Postmortem Tissue
Open accessAbstract
Despite several previous attempts, histological validation of diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI)-based tractography as true axonal fiber pathways remains difficult. In the present study, we establish a method to compare histological and tractography data precisely enough for statements on the level of single tractography pathways. To this end, we used carbocyanine dyes to trace connections in human postmortem tissue and aligned them to high-resolution DW-MRI of the same tissue processed within the diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) formalism. We provide robust definitions of sensitivity (true positives) and specificity (true negatives) for DTI tractography and characterize tractography paths in terms of receiver operating characteristics. With sensitivity and specificity rates of approximately 80%, we could show a clear correspondence between histological and inferred tracts. Furthermore, we investigated the effect of fractional anisotropy (FA) thresholds for the tractography and identified FA values between 0.02 and 0.08 as optimal in our study. Last, we validated the course of entire tractography curves to move beyond correctness determination based on pairs of single points on a tract. Thus, histological techniques, in conjunction with alignment and processing tools, may serve as an important validation method of DW-MRI on the level of inferred tractography projections between brain areas.
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Ex vivo imaging and tracing or physically and numerically simulated phantoms allow validation to some extent, and in specific circumstances such as basic fiber configurations.
“Ex vivo imaging and tracing17–23 or physically24–30 and numerically simulated phantoms31–34 allow validation to some extent, and in specific circumstances such as basic fiber configurations.”
From Tractography-based connectomes are dominated by false-positive connections (2016) · cites this paper as [21]
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- Authors
- Seehaus, A. K., Roebroeck, A., Chiry, O., Kim, D.-S., Ronen, I., Bratzke, H., Goebel, R., & Galuske, R. A. W.
- Affiliations
- Technische Universität Darmstadt (DE)
- Maastricht University (NL)
- Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KR)
- Leiden University Medical Center (NL)
- Goethe University Frankfurt (DE)
- Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NL)
- Venue
- Cerebral Cortex
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2012-02-17
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 442-450
- ISSN
- 1047-3211 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-2199
- PMC
- PMC3584953
- OpenAlex
- W2100478897
- Cited by
- 109
- References
- 34
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 8.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Cerebral Cortex (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- Leiden Repository (Leiden University) (submittedVersion)
- Research Publications (Maastricht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- KNAW Research Portal (The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- W. M. Keck Foundation
- Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
- National Institutes of Health (RR08079)
- National Center for Research Resources (RR 08079, P41RR008079)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced MRI Techniques and Applications
- Keywords
- histopathological confirmation, diffusion tensor imaging, human postmortem brain, sensitivity and specificity, receiver operating characteristic
- MeSH terms
- Autopsy, Brain, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Neural Pathways, ROC Curve, Sensitivity and Specificity, Area Under Curve, Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Diffusion Tensor Imaging
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