Hyuk Jin Yun¹, Hyun Ju Lee², Joo Young Lee², Tomo Tarui³, Caitlin K. Rollins¹, Cynthia M. Ortinau⁴, Henry A. Feldman¹, P. Ellen Grant¹, and Kiho Im^1
1Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States, ²Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea, Republic of, ³Tufts Medical Center, Boston, MA, United States, ⁴Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, United States

Sulcal emergence is important to assess normality of early fetal brain development. Thus, we proposed a quantitative approach to build an accurate timetable of sulcal emergence. Using a large sample of fetuses, we automatically extracted cortical surfaces and detected presence and absences of each sulcus. By fitting a logistic curve to sulcal presence/absence, the timing and inter-subject variability of sulcal emergence were estimated. We also found hemispheric asymmetry and sex difference in the timing and variability of sulcal emergence. Our quantitative timetable concurs with previous reports but provides more precise information and allow statistical comparison. 

Pratheek Bobba¹, Clara F Weber^1,2, Adrian Mak^1,3, Ajay Malhotra⁴, Kevin Sheth⁵, Sarah N Taylor⁶, Arastoo Vossough^7,8, Patricia Ellen Grant^9,10, Todd Constable¹, Laura R Ment^5,6, and Seyedmehdi Payabvash^1
1Radiology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States, ²Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Social Neuroscience Lab, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Lübeck University, Lübeck, Germany, Lübeck, Germany, ³CLAIM - Charité Lab for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany, Berlin, Germany, ⁴Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States, ⁵Neurology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States, ⁶Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States, ⁷Radiology, Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, CT, United States, ⁸Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ⁹Division of Newborn Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States, ¹⁰Radiology, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States

In this retrospective cohort study, we characterized the age-related topography of quantitative diffusion metric evolution in 569 neonates scanned at our institution. We also studied the temporal rate of these metrics across different regions of the brain. and developed online interactive atlases depicting age-specific normative values of ADC and FA/MD in neonatal brains.

Richard Watts¹, BJ Casey¹, and Christopher Filippi^2
1Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States, ²Tufts Medical Center, Boston, MA, United States

Using 9-10 year old monozygotic and dizygotic twins from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development^SM Study, we investigated the genetic and environmental contributions to microstructure (assessed using diffusion MRI and a restriction spectrum imaging model) and volume in nine subcortical gray matter regions. Heritability estimates range from 0.45 to 0.86 for microstructure, and 0.61 to 0.88 for volumes. Only the microstructure of the amygdala showed evidence of sensitivity to the shared environment.

Jarrod J. Eisma¹, Colin D. McKnight², Kilian Hett¹, Jason Elenberger¹, Daniel O. Claassen¹, and Manus J. Donahue^1,3
1Department of Neurology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States, ²Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States, ³Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States

The choroid plexus (ChP) has gained recent attention due to its potential functional relevance for cerebral glymphatic circulation. Here, a novel arterial spin labelling sequence and deep learning algorithm were applied to quantify ChP volume, perfusion, and volumetric flow across the healthy lifespan and in neurodegenerative participants with Parkinson’s disease (PD) to test the hypotheses that ChP hypertrophy and hypoperfusion are associated with increasing age and neurodegeneration. ChP volume increased with age, whereas perfusion decreased with age (p<0.01). In PD, ChP volumetric flow increases were more pronounced relative to age-matched healthy controls, consistent with compensatory stimulation of cerebrospinal fluid production.

Yingjuan Wu¹, Abdur Raquib Ridwan¹, Mohammad Rakeen Niaz¹, David A. Bennett², and Konstantinos Arfanakis^1,2
1Biomedical Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, United States, ²Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, United States

As part of the Multichannel Illinois Institute of Technology & Rush university Aging (MIITRA) atlas project, the present work (A) developed high quality 0.5mm isotropic resolution T1-weighted (T1w) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) templates in common space using data from a large, diverse, community cohort of non-demented older adults, and (B) compared the new templates to existing templates of the older and younger adult brain. The new templates exhibited higher image quality, were more representative of the older adult brain, and allowed higher spatial normalization accuracy across subjects and across modalities compared to other templates.