Logo image
Back
Anti-Correlated Myelin-Sensitive MRI Levels in Humans Consistent with a Subcortical to Sensorimotor Regulatory Process—Multi-Cohort Multi-Modal Evidence
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Anti-Correlated Myelin-Sensitive MRI Levels in Humans Consistent with a Subcortical to Sensorimotor Regulatory Process—Multi-Cohort Multi-Modal Evidence

Leighton Barnden, Benjamin Crouch, Richard Kwiatek, Zack Shan, Kiran Thapaliya, Donald Staines, Sandeep Bhuta, Peter Del Fante and Richard Burnet
Brain Sciences, Vol.12(12), pp.1-14
2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12121693
PMCID: PMC9776387
PMID: 36552153
Appears in  Thompson Institute Research Collection
pdf
Anti-Correlated Myelin-Sensitive MRI Levels in Humans Consistent with a Subcortical to Sensorimotor Regulatory Process—Multi-Cohort Multi-Modal Evidence1.95 MBDownloadView
Published Version Open Access CC BY V4.0
url
https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12121693View
Published Version

Abstract

amygdala hippocampus human hypothalamus interneurons myelin regulation reticular activation system sensorimotor subcortical Other Collaborations Thompson Institute Special Collection
Differential axonal myelination synchronises signalling over different axon lengths. The consequences of myelination processes described at the cellular level for the regulation of myelination at the macroscopic level are unknown. We analysed multiple cohorts of myelin-sensitive brain MRI. Our aim was to (i) confirm a previous report of anti-correlation between myelination in subcortical and sensorimotor areas in healthy subjects, (ii) and thereby test our hypothesis for a regulatory interaction between them. We analysed nine image-sets across three different human cohorts using six MRI modalities. Each image-set contained healthy controls (HC) and ME/CFS subjects. Subcortical and Sensorimotor regions of interest (ROI) were optimised for the detection of anti-correlations and the same ROIs were used to test the HC in all image-sets. For each cohort, median MRI values were computed in both regions for each subject and their correlation across the cohort was computed. We confirmed negative correlations in healthy controls between subcortical and sensorimotor regions in six image-sets: three T1wSE (p = 5 × 10−8, 5 × 10−7, 0.002), T2wSE (p =2 × 10−6), MTC (p = 0.01), and WM volume (p = 0.02). T1/T2 was the exception with a positive correlation (p = 0.01). This myelin regulation study is novel in several aspects: human subjects, cross-sectional design, ROI optimization, spin-echo MRI and reproducible across multiple independent image-sets. In multiple independent image-sets we confirmed an anti-correlation between subcortical and sensorimotor myelination which supports a previously unreported regulatory interaction. The subcortical region contained the brain’s primary regulatory nuclei. We suggest a mechanism has evolved whereby relatively low subcortical myelination in an individual is compensated by upregulated sensorimotor myelination to maintain adequate sensorimotor performance.

Details

Metrics

198 File views/ downloads
52 Record Views
3 Times Cited - Web of Science

InCites Highlights

These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output

Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web Of Science research areas
Clinical Neurology
Neurosciences

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being

Source: SDGs from InCites

Logo image