Abstract
The growing number of neuroimaging studies of cynomolgus macaques require extending existing templates to facilitate species-specific application of voxel-wise neuroimaging methodologies. This study aimed to create population-averaged structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) templates for the cynomolgus macaques and apply the templates in fully automated voxel-wise analyses. We presented the development of symmetric and asymmetric MRI and DTI templates from a sample of 63 young male cynomolgus monkeys with the use of optimized template creation approaches. We also generated the associated average tissue probability maps and Diffeomorphic Anatomical Registration using Exponentiated Lie Algebra templates for use with the Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM), as well as the average fractional anisotropy/skeleton targets for incorporation into tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) framework. Both asymmetric and symmetric templates in a standardized coordinate space demonstrated low bias and high contrast. Fully automated processing using SPM was accomplished for all native MRI datasets and demonstrated outstanding performance regarding skull-stripping, segmentation, and normalization when using the MRI templates. Automated normalization to the DTI template was excellently achieved for all native DTI images using the TBSS pipeline. The cynomolgus MRI and DTI templates are anticipated to provide a common platform for precise single-subject data analysis and facilitate comparison of neuroimaging findings in cynomolgus monkeys across studies and sites. It is also hoped that the procedures of template creation and fully-automated voxel-wise frameworks will provide a straightforward avenue for investigating brain function, development, and neuro-psychopathological disorders in non-human primate models.
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Data Availability
We declare that the T1w and DTI templates, and the associated TPM volumes are openly available for non-profit use at https://github.com/xingshih/SCMAC_templates.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFC1307500), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81971118, 81771137, 81571107, 81801059), the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province of China (2021A1515010094, 2017A030303011, 2017A030310523), the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangzhou of China (201904010313), Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Major Neurological Diseases (2017B030314103), Southern China International Cooperation Base for Early Intervention and Functional Rehabilitation of Neurological Diseases (2015B050501003), Guangdong Provincial Engineering Center for Major Neurological Disease Treatment, Guangdong Provincial Translational Medicine Innovation Platform for Diagnosis and Treatment of Major Neurological Disease, and Guangdong Provincial Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases.
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OB: data curation, investigation, writing—review & editing. cxr: data curation, writing—review and editing. LJH: investigation, formal analysis, writing—review and editing. LJL: data curation, visualization. JZM: data curation, writing—review and editing. CYC: data curation, visualization, writing—review and editing. YZC: visualization, writing—review and editing. ZJS: conceptualization, supervision, validation, visualization, writing—review and editing, funding acquisition. XSH: conceptualization, formal analysis, methodology, resources, software, visualization, writing—original draft.
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Ouyang, F., Chen, X., Liang, J. et al. Population-Average Brain Templates and Application to Automated Voxel-Wise Analysis Pipelines for Cynomolgus Macaque. Neuroinform 20, 613–626 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12021-021-09545-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12021-021-09545-4