Abstract
The lateral parabrachial nucleus, medial parabrachial nucleus, vestibular nuclei complex, and medullary viscero-sensory-motor (VSM) nuclei complex (the latter including among others the solitary nucleus, vagus nerve nucleus, and hypoglossal nucleus) are anatomically and functionally connected brainstem gray matter structures that convey signals across multiple modalities between the brain and the spinal cord to regulate vital bodily functions. It is remarkably difficult to precisely extrapolate the location of these nuclei from ex vivo atlases to conventional 3 Tesla in vivo images; thus, a probabilistic brainstem template in stereotaxic neuroimaging space in living humans is needed. We delineated these nuclei using single-subject high contrast 1.1 mm isotropic resolution 7 Tesla MRI images. After precise coregistration of nuclei labels to stereotaxic space, we generated a probabilistic template of their anatomical locations. Finally, we validated the nuclei labels in the template by assessing their inter-rater agreement, consistency across subjects and volumes. We also performed a preliminary comparison of their location and microstructural properties to histologic sections of a postmortem human brainstem specimen. In future, the resulting probabilistic template of these brainstem nuclei in stereotaxic space may assist researchers and clinicians in evaluating autonomic, vestibular and VSM nuclei structure, function and connectivity in living humans using conventional 3 Tesla MRI scanners.
Highlights
MATERIALS AND METHODSThe lateral parabrachial (LPB) nucleus, medial parabrachial (MPB) nucleus, vestibular (Ve) nuclei complex and medullary viscero-sensory-motor (VSM) nuclei complex are anatomically and functionally connected brainstem gray matter structures that convey signals across multiple modalities between the brain and the spinal cord to regulate vital bodily functions
we foresee that the generated probabilistic template of LPB
be a useful tool for improving localization of brainstem nuclei involved in autonomic, vestibular and VSM functions
Summary
The lateral parabrachial (LPB) nucleus, medial parabrachial (MPB) nucleus, vestibular (Ve) nuclei complex and medullary viscero-sensory-motor (VSM) nuclei (i.e., solitary nucleus, vagus nerve nucleus, hypoglossal nucleus, prepositus, intercalated nucleus, and interpositus) complex are anatomically and functionally connected brainstem gray matter structures that convey signals across multiple modalities between the brain and the spinal cord to regulate vital bodily functions. These structures, individually or synergistically, regulate arousal (e.g., LBP, MPB) (Kaur et al, 2013), gustatory processes (e.g., VSM) (Matsumoto, 2013), sensory-motor function (VSM) (Olszewski and Baxter, 1954), and autonomic functions like cardio-respiratory (e.g., LPB and MPB) (Damasceno et al, 2014) and gastrointestinal processes (e.g., VSM) (Bokiniec et al, 2017). Postmortem atlases (Olszewski and Baxter, 1954; Paxinos and Huang, 1995; Naidich et al, 2009; Paxinos et al, 2012) are mostly 2D, non-probabilistic (i.e., derived from a single or very few brainstem specimens —mostly of elderly subjects), and non-deformable (i.e., mostly static) representations of brainstem nuclei with inherent distortions due to tissue manipulation
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