Velocardiofacial Syndrome as a Genetic Model for Schizophrenia

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Velocardiofacial Syndrome as a Genetic Model for
Schizophrenia

• Marek Kubicki
• DBP2, Brigham and Womens Hospital, Harvard
  Medical School

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Team

• HARVARD
• Marek Kubicki, MD, PhD
• Sylvain Bouix, PhD
• Katharina Quintus, MA
• Tri Ngo, BA
• Doug Markant, BA
• Usman Khan, BA
• NAMIC
• Polina Gollard MIT
• Brad Davis Kitware
• Others

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NAMIC Roadmap Project Stochastic Tractography

• Accomplished
• 1. We have successfully used Stochastic
  Tractography
• with old schizophrenia data available to NAMIC
  (1.5T GE
• data) to trace internal capsule. This study is
  finished,
• and data analyzed. Results were presented at the
  ACNP
• symposium, December 2007 (Shenton et al., 2007).
• 2. Algorithm has been tested on smaller
  structures
• (cingulum, uncinate, arcuate, fornix), and
  demonstrated
• good performance. Data was presented at Santa Fe
• NAMIC meeting this past October.

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NAMIC Roadmap Project Stochastic Tractography

• Accomplished
• 3. Algorithm has been tested, and optimized to
  work
• with newly acquired, high resolution 3T DTI data
• (November, December 2007). Data is now also
  available
• to NAMIC.
• 4. Algorithm has been also tested and further
• debugged on phantom data (Programming week).
• 5. Several new tools have been added to the
  module per our request
• cutting the tracts at the ROIs, streamline
  tractography option to test continuity of the
  tract.

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NAMIC Roadmap Project Stochastic Tractography

• Accomplished
• 6. Slicer3 module has been built and tested
  (programming week).

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NAMIC Roadmap Project Stochastic Tractography

• Planned
• We plan to use Stochastic Tractography to
  delineate connections within the language
  network.
• We are currently working on drawing ROIs that
  would include Brocka and Wernicke areas and on
  generating white matter masks that will be used
  for tracking purposes.
• We plan to use slicer3 module of stochastic
  tractography to extract fiber connections between
  ROIs, and analyze them.
• This analysis will be performed first on already
  collected new schizophrenia dataset (20 controls,
  20 schizophrenics).
• We plan to finish collecting VCFS data within the
  next year, and then start applying the method to
  these data as well.

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Other Contributions to the NAMIC Kit

• DLPFC project
• We have been testing and improving slicer 2 DLPFC
  segmentation module, and optimizing segmentation
  for 3T structural data.
• We have been testing different bias field
  correction programs, in order to further
  fine-tune 3T slicer segmentation.
• We are in touch with Jim Fallon, who developed
  the anatomical landmarks for the module, and will
  work with him to improve the method reliability.
  
• Module will be adapted for slicer3 within a year.

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Other Contributions to the NAMIC Kit

• Resting state fMRI analysis project
• We have collected resting-state fMRI data, and
  started analyzing it. Preliminary results will be
  presented at Biological Psychiatry Symposium.
• We are in the process of co-registering fMRI and
  DTI data in order to use fMRI activation sites
  for tracking (anatomical connectivity measures).
• We are still working on distortion correction
  problem, that would improve registration between
  fMRI and DTI modalities.

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Other Contributions to the NAMIC Kit

• DTI atlas registration project
• We have obtained DTI atlas of white matter labels
  from MIND (Susumu Mori)
• We are trying to register these labels to our 3T
  DTI data through anatomical SPGR images.
  Preliminary data will be presented at Biological
  Psychiatry Symposium.
• We are using slicer 3, and working on improving
  co-registration procedures (estimating and
  applying deformations to different images,
  reverse deformations, etc).

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Collaborations within NAMIC