Year: 2019
Type: preprint
Abstract: The brainstem, a structure of vital importance in the mammals, is currently becoming a principal focus in cognitive, affective and clinical neuroscience. Midbrain, pontine and medullar structures are the epicenter of conduit, cranial nerve and such integrative functions as consciousness, emotional processing, pain and motivation. In this study, we parcellated the nuclear masses and the principal fiber pathways that were visible in a high resolution T2-weighted MRI dataset of 50-micron isotropic voxels of a postmortem human brainstem. Based on this analysis, we generated a detailed map of the human brainstem. To assess the validity of our maps, we compared our observations with histological maps of traditional human brainstem atlases. Moreover, we reconstructed the motor, sensory and integrative neural systems of the brainstem and rendered them in 3D representations. We anticipate the utilization of these maps by the neuroimaging community at large for applications in basic neuroscience as well as in neurology, psychiatry and neurosurgery, due to their versatile computational nature in 2D and 3D representations in a publicly available capacity.
DOI: 10.1101/768002
Institutions: Boston University, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Colby College, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Clermont Auvergne, Sigma Clermont, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Clermont-Ferrand, Duke Medical Center, University of Bremen, Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine
Language: English
Subfield: Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2973156471