An MRI-based approach for the measurement of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in humans

Sanches, Marsal; Caetano, Sheila; Nicoletti, Mark; Monkul, E. Serap; Chen, Hua Hsuan; Hatch, John P.; Yeh, Ping-Hong; Mullis, Rachel L.; Keshavan, Matcheri S.; Rajowska, Grazyna; Soares, Jair C.

doi:10.1016/j.pscychresns.2009.02.007

« Previous Next »Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging
Volume 173, Issue 2 , Pages 150-154, 30 August 2009

An MRI-based approach for the measurement of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in humans

Marsal Sanches
- Department of Psychiatry, Federal University of São Paulo, Rua Botucatu, São Paulo, 740 CEP 04023-900, Brazil
Sheila Caetano
- Department of Psychiatry, University of São Paolo, Caixa Postal 66281 São Paulo 05311-970, Brazil
Mark Nicoletti
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, 10612 Neurosciences Hospital CB#7160, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
E. Serap Monkul
- Division of Mood and Anxiety Disorders, Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio, TX, USA
Hua Hsuan Chen
- Division of Mood and Anxiety Disorders, Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio, TX, USA
John P. Hatch
- Division of Mood and Anxiety Disorders, Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio, TX, USA
Ping-Hong Yeh
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, 10612 Neurosciences Hospital CB#7160, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Rachel L. Mullis
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, 10612 Neurosciences Hospital CB#7160, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Matcheri S. Keshavan
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA
Grazyna Rajowska
- Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of Mississippi Medical Center, 2500 N. State Street, Jackson, MS, USA
Jair C. Soares
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, 10612 Neurosciences Hospital CB#7160, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
- Corresponding author. Center of Excellence for Research and Treatment of Bipolar Disorder, 10612 Neurosciences Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, CB#7160, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7160, USA. Tel.: +1 919 966 8832; fax: +1 919 843 3950.

Received 9 May 2008; received in revised form 24 November 2008; accepted 19 February 2009.

Abstract

The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) has been implicated in the pathophysiology of mental disorders. Previous region-of-interest MRI studies that attempted to delineate this region adopted various landmarks and measurement techniques, with inconsistent results. We developed a new region-of-interest measurement method to obtain morphometric data of this region from structural MRI scans, taking into account knowledge from cytoarchitectonic postmortem studies and the large inter-individual variability of this region. MRI scans of 10 subjects were obtained, and DLPFC tracing was performed in the coronal plane by two independent raters using the semi-automated software Brains2. The intra-class correlation coefficients between two independent raters were 0.94 for the left DLPFC and 0.93 for the right DLPFC. The mean±S.D. DLPFC volumes were 9.23±2.35 ml for the left hemisphere and 8.20±2.08 ml for the right hemisphere. Our proposed method has high inter-rater reliability and is easy to implement, permitting the standardized measurement of this region for clinical research applications.