Abstract
Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) based on high resolution three-dimensional data of magnetic resonance imaging has been developed as a statistical morphometric imaging analysis method to locate brain abnormalities in humans. Recently, VBM has been used for human patients with psychological or neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and epilepsy. Traditional volumetry using region of interest (ROI) is performed manually and the observer needs detailed knowledge of the neuroanatomy having to trace objects of interest on many slices which can cause artificial errors. In contrast, VBM is an automatic technique that has less observer biases compared to the ROI method. In humans, VBM analysis is performed in patients with epilepsy to detect accurately structural abnormalities. Familial spontaneous epileptic cats (FSECs) have been developed as an animal model of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. In FSECs, hippocampal asymmetry had been detected using three-dimensional magnetic resonance (MR) volumetry based on the ROI method. In this study, we produced a standard template of the feline brain and compared FSECs and healthy cats using standard VBM analysis. The feline standard template and tissue probability maps were created using 38 scans from 14 healthy cats. Subsequently, the gray matter was compared between FSECs (n = 25) and healthy controls (n = 12) as group analysis and between each FSEC and controls as individual analysis. The feline standard template and tissue probability maps could be created using the VBM tools for humans. There was no significant reduction of GM in the FSEC group compared to the control group. However, 5/25 (20%) FSECs showed significant decreases in the hippocampal and/or amygdaloid regions in individual analysis. Here, we established the feline standard templates of the brain that can be used to determine accurately abnormal zones. Furthermore, like MR volumetry, VBM identified morphometric changes in the hippocampus and/or amygdala in some FSECs.
Highlights
Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) based on high-resolution three-dimensional (3D) data of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been established as a statistical morphometric imaging analysis to accurately locate structural brain abnormalities in humans [1]
When comparing gray matter (GM) between familial spontaneous epileptic cat (FSEC) and control groups using the standard VBM analysis, there were no significant reductions in any regions
In the individual analysis, 5/25 (20%) FSECs showed significant hippocampal and/or amygdaloid reduction compared to controls (P(FWE) < 0.001)
Summary
Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) based on high-resolution three-dimensional (3D) data of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been established as a statistical morphometric imaging analysis to accurately locate structural brain abnormalities in humans [1]. VBM Analysis in Familial Epileptic Cats tracing the object manually in many slices leading to bias [2]. VBM analysis was used in some animal models, such as mice [3], rats [4], baboons [5], and macaques [6]. Dogs were used as human models of aging in VBM studies [7]. Gray matter (GM) reduction was found in dogs with idiopathic and structural epilepsy using VBM analysis [8]. Many studies used cats as an experimental animal to investigate the function and diseases of the brain. Despite the fact that the physiological information of the feline brain has been elucidated comparatively, VBM analysis has not been performed in cats yet
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