MRI diffusion tractography study in individuals with schizotypal features: a pilot study.

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies have identified changes in white matter tracts in schizophrenia patients and those at high risk of transition. Schizotypal samples represent a group on the schizophrenia continuum that share some aetiological risk factors but without the confounds of illness. The aim of the current study was to compare tract microstructural coherence as measured by fractional anisotropy (FA) between 12 psychometrically defined schizotypes and controls.

Both the middle temporal gyrus and the ventral anterior temporal area are crucial for multimodal semantic processing: distortion-corrected fMRI evidence for a double gradient of information convergence in the temporal lobes.

Most contemporary theories of semantic memory assume that concepts are formed from the distillation of information arising in distinct sensory and verbal modalities. The neural basis of this distillation or convergence of information was the focus of this study. Specifically, we explored two commonly posed hypotheses: (a) that the human middle temporal gyrus (MTG) provides a crucial semantic interface given the fact that it interposes auditory and visual processing streams and (b) that the anterior temporal region-especially its ventral surface (vATL)-provides a critical region for the multimodal integration of information.

The ventral and inferolateral aspects of the anterior temporal lobe are crucial in semantic memory: evidence from a novel direct comparison of distortion-corrected fMRI, rTMS, and semantic dementia.

Although there is an emerging consensus that the anterior temporal lobes (ATLs) are involved in semantic memory, it is currently unclear which specific parts of this region are implicated in semantic representation. Answers to this question are difficult to glean from the existing literature for 3 reasons: 1) lesions of relevant patient groups tend to encompass the whole ATL region; 2) while local effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) are spatially more specific, only the lateral aspects of the ATL are available to stimulation; and 3) until recently, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies were hindered by technical limitations such as signal distortion and dropout due to magnetic inhomogeneities and also, in some cases, by methodological factors, including a restricted field of view and the choice of baseline contrast for subtraction analysis. By utilizing the same semantic task across semantic dementia, rTMS, and distortion-corrected fMRI in normal participants, we directly compared the results across the 3 methods for the first time.

Distortion correction for diffusion-weighted MRI tractography and fMRI in the temporal lobes.

Single shot echo-planar imaging (EPI) sequences are currently the most commonly used sequences for diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as they allow relatively high signal to noise with rapid acquisition time. A major drawback of EPI is the substantial geometric distortion and signal loss that can occur due to magnetic field inhomogeneities close to air-tissue boundaries. If DWI-based tractography and fMRI are to be applied to these regions, then the distortions must be accurately corrected to achieve meaningful results.

Using the model-based residual bootstrap to quantify uncertainty in fiber orientations from Q-ball analysis.

Bootstrapping of repeated diffusion-weighted image datasets enables nonparametric quantification of the uncertainty in the inferred fiber orientation. The wild bootstrap and the residual bootstrap are model-based residual resampling methods which use a single dataset. Previously, the wild bootstrap method has been presented as an alternative to conventional bootstrapping for diffusion tensor imaging.

Probabilistic fibre tracking: differentiation of connections from chance events.

Probabilistic tractography methods that use Monte Carlo sampling of voxelwise fibre orientation probability density functions suffer from distance-related artefacts due to the propagation of uncertainty along the tract path. These are manifested as a preferential weighting of regions close to the tracking start point at the expense of more distant regions--an effect that can mask genuine anatomical connections. We propose a methodology based on comparison of the conventional connection probability map with a null connection map that defines the distribution of connections expected by a random tracking process and that is dominated by the same distance effects.

Distortion correction for a double inversion-recovery sequence with an echo-planar imaging readout.

A double inversion-recovery (DIR) sequence with an echo-planar imaging (EPI) readout can be used to image selectively the grey matter of the brain, and this has previously been applied to improve the sensitivity of the statistical analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. If a procedure were to be implemented to remove the distortions that are inherent in the EPI-based fMRI data set, then a similar technique would have to be applied to the DIR-EPI image also to ensure that it matches the geometry of the functional data. A comparison of candidate methodologies for correcting distortions in DIR-EPI images, based on the reversed-gradient method, is presented.