Chimpanzee brain morphometry utilizing standardized MRI preprocessing and macroanatomical annotations

Sam Vickery; William D Hopkins; Chet C Sherwood; Steven J Schapiro; Robert D Latzman; Svenja Caspers; Christian Gaser; Simon B Eickhoff; Robert Dahnke; Felix Hoffstaedter

doi:10.7554/eLife.60136

Chimpanzee brain morphometry utilizing standardized MRI preprocessing and macroanatomical annotations

Elife. 2020 Nov 23:9:e60136. doi: 10.7554/eLife.60136.

Authors

Sam Vickery^{1

2}, William D Hopkins³, Chet C Sherwood⁴, Steven J Schapiro^{3

5}, Robert D Latzman⁶, Svenja Caspers^{7

8

9}, Christian Gaser^{10

11}, Simon B Eickhoff^{1

2}, Robert Dahnke^#^{10

11

12}, Felix Hoffstaedter^#^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Systems Neuroscience, Medical Faculty, Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany.
² Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-7) Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany.
³ Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Bastrop, United States.
⁴ Department of Anthropology and Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, The George Washington University, Washington, United States.
⁵ Department of Experimental Medicine, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
⁶ Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, United States.
⁷ Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany.
⁸ Institute for Anatomy I, Medical Faculty, Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany.
⁹ JARA-BRAIN, Jülich-Aachen Research Alliance, Jülich, Germany.
¹⁰ Structural Brain Mapping Group, Department of Neurology, Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany.
¹¹ Structural Brain Mapping Group, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany.
¹² Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Chimpanzees are among the closest living relatives to humans and, as such, provide a crucial comparative model for investigating primate brain evolution. In recent years, human brain mapping has strongly benefited from enhanced computational models and image processing pipelines that could also improve data analyses in animals by using species-specific templates. In this study, we use structural MRI data from the National Chimpanzee Brain Resource (NCBR) to develop the chimpanzee brain reference template Juna.Chimp for spatial registration and the macro-anatomical brain parcellation Davi130 for standardized whole-brain analysis. Additionally, we introduce a ready-to-use image processing pipeline built upon the CAT12 toolbox in SPM12, implementing a standard human image preprocessing framework in chimpanzees. Applying this approach to data from 194 subjects, we find strong evidence for human-like age-related gray matter atrophy in multiple regions of the chimpanzee brain, as well as, a general rightward asymmetry in brain regions.

Keywords: VBM; aging; asymmetry; chimpanzee; gray matter; neuroscience; preprocessing.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Brain / anatomy & histology*
Brain Mapping / methods
Brain Mapping / veterinary*
Female
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / methods*
Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods
Magnetic Resonance Imaging / veterinary*
Male
Pan troglodytes / anatomy & histology*
Software

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding