Person:

Levman, Jacob

Brain cancer and neurological injuries, such as stroke, are life-threatening conditions for which further research is needed to overcome the many challenges associated with providing optimal patient care. Multivariate analysis (MVA) is a class of pattern recognition technique involving the processing of data that contains multiple measurements per sample. MVA can be used to address a wide variety of neuroimaging challenges, including identifying variables associated with patient outcomes; understanding an injury’s etiology, development, and progression; creating diagnostic tests; assisting in treatment monitoring; and more. Compared to adults, imaging of the developing brain has attracted less attention from MVA researchers, however, remarkable MVA growth has occurred in recent years. This paper presents the results of a systematic review of the literature focusing on MVA technologies applied to brain injury and cancer in neurological fetal, neonatal, and pediatric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). With a wide variety of MRI modalities providing physiologically meaningful biomarkers and new biomarker measurements constantly under development, MVA techniques hold enormous potential toward combining available measurements toward improving basic research and the creation of technologies that contribute to improving patient care.

Abstract Introduction: Many neurologic and psychiatric disorders are thought to be due to, or result in, developmental errors in neuronal cerebellar connectivity. In this connectivity analysis, we studied the developmental time‐course of cerebellar peduncle pathways in pediatric and young adult subjects. Methods: A cohort of 80 subjects, newborns to young adults, was studied on a 3T MR system with 30 diffusion‐weighted measurements with high‐angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) tractography. Results: Qualitative and quantitative results were analyzed for age‐based variation. In subjects of all ages, the superior cerebellar peduncle pathway (SCP) and two distinct subpathways of the middle cerebellar peduncle (MCP), as described in previous ex vivo studies, were identified in vivo with this technique: pathways between the rostral pons and inferior‐lateral cerebellum (MCP cog), associated predominantly with higher cognitive function, and pathways between the caudal pons and superior‐medial cerebellum (MCP mot), associated predominantly with motor function. Discussion Our findings showed that the inferior cerebellar peduncle pathway (ICP), involved primarily in proprioception and balance appears to have a later onset followed by more rapid development than that exhibited in other tracts. We hope that this study may provide an initial point of reference for future studies of normal and pathologic development of cerebellar connectivity.