Analyses of microstructural variation in the human striatum using non-negative matrix factorization

• Published in: NeuroImage (Orlando, Fla.) Vol. 246; p. 118744
• Main Authors: Robert, Corinne, Patel, Raihaan, Blostein, Nadia, Steele, Chrisopher J., Chakravarty, M. Mallar
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01-02-2022; Elsevier Limited; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adult; Anisotropy; Cognitive ability; Connectome; Corpus Striatum - anatomy & histology; Corpus Striatum - diagnostic imaging; Decomposition; Demography; Diffusion Tensor Imaging - methods; Female; Franctional anisotropy; Humans; Magnetic resonance imaging; Male; Mean diffusivity; Microstructure; Motor task performance; Multimodal; Neostriatum; Non-negative matrix factorization; Quality control; Striatum; Systematic review; T1w/T2w; Young Adult; Striatum; Mean diffusivity; Non-negative matrix factorization; Multimodal; T1w/T2w; Franctional anisotropy; Microstructure
• ISSN: 1053-8119; 1095-9572
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118744

•We identified 5 distinct microstructural components in the human striatum using OPNMf.•We related individual variation in the component’s microstructure to demographics and behaviours.•We used Neurosynth to relate the identified components to brain function.
The striatum is a major subcortical connection hub that has been heavily implicated in a wide array of motor and cognitive functions. Here, we developed a normative multimodal, data-driven microstructural parcellation of the striatum using non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) based on multiple magnetic resonance imaging-based metrics (mean diffusivity, fractional anisotropy, and the ratio between T1- and T2-weighted structural scans) from the Human Connectome Project Young Adult dataset (n = 329 unrelated participants, age range: 22–35, F/M: 185/144). We further explored the biological and functional relationships of this parcellation by relating our findings to motor and cognitive performance in tasks known to involve the striatum as well as demographics. We identified 5 spatially distinct striatal components for each hemisphere. We also show the gain in component stability when using multimodal versus unimodal metrics. Our findings suggest distinct microstructural patterns in the human striatum that are largely symmetric and that relate mostly to age and sex. Our work also highlights the putative functional relevance of these striatal components to different designations based on a Neurosynth meta-analysis.