Manual for clinical language tractography

• Published in: Acta neurochirurgica Vol. 161; no. 6; pp. 1125 - 1137
• Main Authors: Fekonja, Lucius, Wang, Ziqian, Bährend, Ina, Rosenstock, Tizian, Rösler, Judith, Wallmeroth, Lara, Vajkoczy, Peter, Picht, Thomas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Vienna Springer Vienna 01.06.2019; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Brain cancer; Diffusion Tensor Imaging - methods; Diffusion Tensor Imaging - standards; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - methods; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - standards; Interventional Radiology; Language; Magnetic resonance imaging; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Minimally Invasive Surgery; Neurology; Neuroradiology; Neurosurgery; Neurosurgical anatomy; Practice Guidelines as Topic; Surgical Orthopedics; Technical Note - Neurosurgical Anatomy; Language; Brain tumor surgery; Tractography; Neuroanatomy; Diffusion tensor imaging
• ISSN: 0001-6268; 0942-0940; 0942-0940
• DOI: 10.1007/s00701-019-03899-0

Background We introduce a user-friendly, standardized protocol for tractography of the major language fiber bundles. Method The introduced method uses dMRI images for tractography whereas the ROI definition is based on structural T1 MPRAGE MRI templates, without normalization to MNI space. ROIs for five language-relevant fiber bundles were visualized on an axial, coronal, or sagittal view of T1 MPRAGE images. The ROIs were defined based upon the tracts’ obligatory pathways, derived from literature and own experiences in peritumoral tractography. Results The resulting guideline was evaluated for each fiber bundle in ten healthy subjects and ten patients by one expert and three raters. Overall, 300 ROIs were evaluated and compared. The targeted language fiber bundles could be tracked in 88% of the ROI pairs, based on the raters’ result blinded ROI placements. The evaluation indicated that the precision of the ROIs did not relate to the varying experience of the raters. Conclusions Our guideline introduces a standardized language tractography method for routine preoperative workup and for research contexts. The ROI placement guideline based on easy-to-identify anatomical landmarks proved to be user-friendly and accurate, also in inexperienced test persons.