Volume versus surface-based cortical thickness measurements: A comparative study with healthy controls and multiple sclerosis patients

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 12; no. 7; p. e0179590
• Main Authors: Righart, R, Schmidt, P, Dahnke, R, Biberacher, V, Beer, A, Buck, D, Hemmer, B, Kirschke, J S, Zimmer, C, Gaser, C, Mühlau, M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 06-07-2017; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adult; Age; Age Factors; Aging; Algorithms; Anatomy; Automation; Biology and Life Sciences; Brain; Case-Control Studies; Cerebral cortex; Cerebral Cortex - diagnostic imaging; Cerebral Cortex - pathology; Cerebral Cortex - physiopathology; Clusters; Cognitive ability; Comparative analysis; Comparative studies; Computational neuroscience; Computer and Information Sciences; Computer programs; Correlation analysis; Engineering and Technology; Female; Gray Matter - diagnostic imaging; Gray Matter - pathology; Gray Matter - physiopathology; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - methods; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Medical imaging; Medicine and Health Sciences; Methods; Multiple sclerosis; Multiple Sclerosis - diagnostic imaging; Multiple Sclerosis - pathology; Multiple Sclerosis - physiopathology; Neurology; Patients; Research and Analysis Methods; Software; Software development tools; Studies; Substantia grisea; Thickness measurement; Thinning; Germany
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0179590

The cerebral cortex is a highly folded outer layer of grey matter tissue that plays a key role in cognitive functions. In part, alterations of the cortex during development and disease can be captured by measuring the cortical thickness across the whole brain. Available software tools differ with regard to labor intensity and computational demands. In this study, we compared the computational anatomy toolbox (CAT), a recently proposed volume-based tool, with the well-established surface-based tool FreeSurfer. We observed that overall thickness measures were highly inter-correlated, although thickness estimates were systematically lower in CAT than in FreeSurfer. Comparison of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with age-matched healthy control subjects showed highly comparable clusters of MS-related thinning for both methods. Likewise, both methods yielded comparable clusters of age-related cortical thinning, although correlations between age and average cortical thickness were stronger for FreeSurfer. Our data suggest that, for the analysis of cortical thickness, the volume-based CAT tool can be regarded a considerable alternative to the well-established surface-based FreeSurfer tool.