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@INPROCEEDINGS{Oberstra:1033579,
author = {Oberstraß, Alexander and DeKraker, Jordan and
Palomero-Gallagher, Nicola and Muenzing, Sascha E. A. and
Evans, Alan C. and Axer, Markus and Amunts, Katrin and
Dickscheid, Timo},
title = {{A}nalyzing {R}egional {O}rganization of the {H}uman
{H}ippocampus in 3{D}-{PLI} {U}sing {C}ontrastive {L}earning
and {G}eometric {U}nfolding},
reportid = {FZJ-2024-06459},
year = {2024},
abstract = {Quantifiable and interpretable descriptors of nerve fiber
architecture at microscopic resolution are an important
basis for a deeper understanding of human brain
architecture. 3D polarized light imaging (3D-PLI) provides
detailed insights into the course and geometry of nerve
fibers in whole postmortem brain sections, represented in
large datasets. The large amounts of data, combined with
complex textures in 3D-PLI images, however, make analysis
challenging and limit access to data annotations. To this
end, we propose using self-supervised contrastive learning
to extract deep texture features for fiber architecture in
3D-PLI. We use the texture features to analyze the regional
organization of the human hippocampus in combination with
geometric unfolding to reduce the effects of its folded
topology and project the features to a canonical reference
space.We analyze the fiber architecture of a human
hippocampus of an 87-year-old male, measured with a
polarizing microscope (PM) at 1.3 µm in-plane resolution on
60 µm thick brain sections. The volume comprises 545 brain
sections, each 26757 × 22734 pixels in size. We apply
contrastive learning to learn robust and descriptive
representations by contrasting similar (positive) and
dissimilar (negative) pairs of texture examples. Here, we
leverage the volume reconstruction of individual brain
sections in the learning objective to identify positive
pairs based on a fixed distance between example image
patches either in-plane (CL-2D) or across brain sections in
3D (CL-3D). The objective is used to train a width-reduced
ResNet-50 architecture on the full hippocampus, extracting
256 texture features for square patches of 128 pixels size
(166 µm). After training, inference is performed using a
sliding window approach to generate feature maps for whole
brain sections. To analyze the folded architecture of the
hippocampus, we apply HippUnfold and sample features from
the feature maps at multiple depths of the pyramidal layer
of the hippocampal Cornu ammonis (CA) region and the
subicular complex. Subsequently, PCA is performed to reduce
feature dimensionality for visualization and improve
computational stability in further analysis.To assess how
well the deep texture features reflect the regional
organization of the hippocampus, we perform k-means
clustering for 6 clusters and compare the results with
subfield labels. Clusters in CL-3D features show good visual
agreement with hippocampal CA1-CA4 regions and the subicular
complex. In terms of mutual information (0.72), they align
more clearly compared to clustering of baseline
characterizations based on fractional anisotropy and mean
transmittance (0.40), as well as CL-2D (0.61).Without any
supervisory signal, CL-3D features form a well-structured
embedding space, following the general regional organization
pattern of the hippocampus and additionally highlight an
expected functional rostro-caudal heterogeneity. Projecting
deep texture features to unfolded space using HippUnfold
enables subsequent comparison with diverse modalities. This
work thus lays the foundation for incorporating 3D-PLI
texture information into a comprehensive multimodal mapping
of the human hippocampus.},
month = {Nov},
date = {2024-11-19},
organization = {INM Retreat 2024, Jülich (Germany),
19 Nov 2024 - 20 Nov 2024},
subtyp = {After Call},
cin = {INM-1},
cid = {I:(DE-Juel1)INM-1-20090406},
pnm = {5251 - Multilevel Brain Organization and Variability
(POF4-525) / 5254 - Neuroscientific Data Analytics and AI
(POF4-525) / HIBALL - Helmholtz International BigBrain
Analytics and Learning Laboratory (HIBALL) (InterLabs-0015)
/ EBRAINS 2.0 - EBRAINS 2.0: A Research Infrastructure to
Advance Neuroscience and Brain Health (101147319) /
Helmholtz AI - Helmholtz Artificial Intelligence
Coordination Unit – Local Unit FZJ (E.40401.62)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-5251 / G:(DE-HGF)POF4-5254 /
G:(DE-HGF)InterLabs-0015 / G:(EU-Grant)101147319 /
G:(DE-Juel-1)E.40401.62},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)24},
url = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/1033579},
}