Biology subjects

Tristan-Vega, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Tristan-Vega, A..

6 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Reproducibility and reliability of Free-Water-corrected Diffusion Tensor Imaging of the brain: Revisited

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) corrected for the free-water (FW) enables the separation of a hindered Gaussian-like profile from an isotropic component, which represents diffusion found in cerebrospinal and interstitial fluids within the extracellular space of grey and white matter. The assessment of the reproducibility and reliability properties of FW-corrected DTI is a crucial factor in demonstrating the potential clinical utility of this refinement, particularly considering the examinations across multiple medical centres. This paper explores the variability, reliability, and separability properties of free-water volume fraction (FWVF) and FW-corrected DTI-based measures in healthy human brain white matter using publicly available test-retest databases acquired in 1) intra-scanner, 2) intra-scanner longitudinal and 3) inter-scanner settings under varying acquisition schemes. Three different estimation techniques to retrieve the FW-corrected DTI parameters tailored to single- or multiple-shell diffusion-sensitizing magnetic resonance (MR) acquisitions are investigated: i) a direct optimization of bi-tensor signal representation in the variational framework, ii) the region contraction-based approach, and iii) the spherical means technique combined with a correction of diffusion-weighted MR signal prior to DTI estimation. We found the previous suggestion (Hum. Brain Mapp., 38(1), 2017, 10.1002/hbm.23350) that the FW correction to DTI in a single-shell diffusion-weighted MR acquisition improves the repeatability and reliability of DTI-based measures may be data- and methodology-dependent, and does not generalise to multiple-shell scenario. Our experiments have shown that the most reliable and repeatable/reproducible measures, while preserving a moderate separability property, are fractional anisotropy and axial diffusivity estimated in a multiple-shell variant under a combined FW-correction scheme. On the contrary, our results show evidence that the least reliable measures are the mean diffusivity estimated using any FW-correction procedure, as well as the FWVF parameter itself. These results can be used to establish the direction for selecting the most attractive FW-correction DTI scheme for clinical applications in terms of the variability-reliability-separability criterion.

bioengineering↗

bioRxiv2022

Free-water volume fraction increases non-linearly with age in the white matter of the healthy human brain

The term free-water volume fraction (FWVF) refers to the cerebrospinal and interstitial fluids in the extracellular space of the white matter (WM) of the brain, which has been demonstrated as a sensitive biomarker that correlates with the cognitive performance and the neuropathological processes modifying the interstitial extracellular spaces. It can be quantified by properly fitting the isotropic compartment of the magnetic resonance (MR) signal in diffusion-sensitized sequences. Using N = 287 healthy subjects aged 25-94, this study examines in detail the evolution of the FWVF in the human brain WM across the adult lifespan, which has been previously reported to exhibit a positive trend. We found evidence of a noticeably non-linear gain after the sixth decade of life, with a region-specific variate and varying change rate of the FWVF parameter with age, at the same time a heteroskedastic pattern across the adult lifespan is suggested. On the other hand, the FW-compensated MR signal leads to a region-dependent flattened age-related evolution of the mean diffusivity (MD) and fractional anisotropy (FA), along with a considerable reduction in their variability, as compared to standard studies conducted over the raw MR signal. This way, our study provides a new perspective on the trajectory-based assessment of the brain and explains the source of the variations observed in FA and MD parameters across the lifespan with previous studies with the standard diffusion tensor imaging.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2022

Viability of AMURA biomarkers from single-shell diffusion MRI in Migraine Clinical Studies

Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) is the most employed method to assess white matter properties using quantitative parameters derived from diffusion MRI, but it presents known limitations that restricts the evaluation of complex structures. The objective of this study was the assessment of complementary diffusion measures extracted with a novel approach, Apparent Measures Using Reduced Acquisitions (AMURA), in comparison with DTI in clinical studies. Fifty healthy controls, 51 episodic migraine and 56 chronic migraine patients underwent single-shell diffusion MRI. Three DTI-based and eight AMURA-based parameters were compared between groups with tract-based spatial statistics. On the other hand, following a region-based analysis, the measures were assessed for multiple subsamples with diverse reduced sample sizes and their stability was evaluated with the coefficient of quartile variation. Compared to DTI, statistically significant differences in additional regions and group comparisons were found with AMURA-based measures. Additionally, some AMURA-based measures showed a remarkable discriminative power for quite reduced sample size and, simultaneously, lower stability (higher coefficient of quartile variation) than DTI-based measures. These findings suggest that AMURA presents favorable characteristics to identify differences of specific microstructural properties between clinical groups in regions with complex fiber architecture and lower dependency on the sample size or assessing technique than DTI.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Anisotropy Measure from Three Diffusion-Encoding Gradient Directions

PurposeWe propose a method that can provide information about the anisotropy and orientation of diffusion in the brain from only 3 orthogonal gradient directions without imposing additional assumptions. MethodsThe method is based on the Diffusion Anisotropy (DiA) that measures the distance from a diffusion signal to its isotropic equivalent. The original formulation based on a Spherical Harmonics basis allows to go down to only 3 orthogonal directions in order to estimate the measure. In addition, an alternative simplification and a color-coding representation are also proposed. ResultsAcquisitions from a publicly available database are used to test the viability of the proposal. The DiA succeeded in providing anisotropy information from the white matter using only 3 diffusion-encoding directions. The price to pay for such reduced acquisition is an increment in the variability of the data and a subestimation of the metric. ConclusionsThe calculation of anisotropy information from DMRI is feasible using fewer than 6 gradient directions by using DiA. The method is totally compatible with existing acquisition protocols and it may provide complementary information about orientation in fast diffusion acquisitions.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Apparent Propagator Anisotropy from reduced Diffusion MRI acquisitions

The Propagator Anisotropy (PA) is a measurement of the orientational variability inside a tissue estimated from diffusion MRI using the Ensemble Average diffusion Propagator (EAP). It is based on the quantification of the angular difference between the propagator in a specific voxel and its isotropic counterpart. The PA has shown the ability to reveal microstructural information of interest and meaningful descriptive maps inside the white matter. However, the use of PA is not generalized among the clinical community, due to the great amount of data needed for its calculation, together with the associated long processing times. In order to calculate the PA, the EAP must also be properly estimated. This task would require a dense sampling of the Cartesian q-space. Alternatively, more efficient techniques have been proposed in the last decade. Even so, all of them imply acquiring a large number of diffusion gradients with different b-values and long processing times.\n\nIn this work, we propose an alternative implementation to drastically reduce the number of samples needed, as well as boosting the estimation procedure. We avoid the calculation of the whole EAP by assuming that the diffusion anisotropy is roughly independent from the radial direction. With such an assumption, we achieve a closed-form expression for a measure similar to the PA but using information from one single shell: the Apparent Propagator Anisotropy (APA). The new measure remains compatible with standard acquisition protocols commonly used for HARDI (based on just one b-value). The intention of the APA is not to exactly replicate the PA but inferring microstructural information with comparable discrimination power as the PA but using a reduced amount of data.\n\nWe report extensive results showing that the proposed measures present a robust behavior in clinical studies and they are computationally efficient and robust when compared with PA and other anisotropy measures.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Microstructure Diffusion Scalar Measures from Reduced MRI Acquisitions

In diffusion MRI, the Ensemble Average diffusion Propagator (EAP) provides relevant microstructural information and meaningful descriptive maps of the white matter previously obscured by traditional techniques like the Diffusion Tensor. The direct estimation of the EAP, however, requires a dense sampling of the Cartesian q-space. Due to the huge amount of samples needed for an accurate reconstruction, more efficient alternative techniques have been proposed in the last decade. Even so, all of them imply acquiring a large number of diffusion gradients with different b-values. In order to use the EAP in practical studies, scalar measures must be directly derived, being the most common the return-to-origin probability (RTOP) and the return-to-plane and return-to-axis probabilities (RTPP, RTAP).\n\nIn this work, we propose the so-called \"Apparent Measures Using Reduced Acquisitions\" (AMURA) to drastically reduce the number of samples needed for the estimation of diffusion properties. AMURA avoids the calculation of the whole EAP by assuming the diffusion anisotropy is roughly independent from the radial direction. With such an assumption, and as opposed to common multi-shell procedures based on iterative optimization, we achieve closed-form expressions for the measures using information from one single shell. This way, the new methodology remains compatible with standard acquisition protocols commonly used for HARDI (based on just one b-value). We report extensive results showing the potential of AMURA to reveal microstructural properties of the tissues compared to state of the art EAP estimators, and is well above that of Diffusion Tensor techniques. At the same time, the closed forms provided for RTOP, RTPP, and RTAP-like magnitudes make AMURA both computationally efficient and robust.

neuroscience↗