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Hi Iman,

That is exactly what I was looking for, thank you!!

Best,
Panos

From: freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu 
<freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu> on behalf of Aganj, Iman 
<iag...@mgh.harvard.edu>
Date: Tuesday, April 26, 2022 at 9:40 AM
To: Freesurfer support list <freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu>
Subject: [External] Re: [Freesurfer] Cortical depth at each cortical voxel
Hi Panos,

Please see my responses interleaved.

Best,
Iman


From: freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu 
<freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu> On Behalf Of Fotiadis, Panagiotis
Sent: Monday, April 25, 2022 10:48 PM
To: Freesurfer support list <freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu>
Subject: Re: [Freesurfer] Cortical depth at each cortical voxel

Hi Iman,

Apologies for the follow up! I had a couple questions concerning the software:


  1.  Concerning the MLI_thickness.m function: I used a binary mask of the 
cortical ribbon (= I) as its first input and L (where L = 
makeLineSegments(round(.2*size(I,1)) ) as the second input (similarly to the 
suggestion in EXAMPLE.m file). I tried different radii as well for the 
makeLineSegments function and the thickness results are highly linear to each 
other. Do those inputs seem reasonable in this case (i.e., for real 3D MRI 
scans), in your opinion?

In makeLineSegments, you may want to use a radius that is a few voxels larger 
than the maximum thickness that you expect (voxels being the unit of the 
measured thickness).


  1.  Concerning the cortical depth calculation for each voxel: Unless I’m 
mistaken, the (cortical depth = Thickness/2 – SkeletonDistance) equation would 
give me the cortical depth of each voxel from the closest surface layer, right? 
 So for instance, if my voxel of interest were “above” the skeleton (i.e., the 
middle layer of the cortical ribbon), then the above equation would give out 
its distance from the surface layer that is also above the skeleton, whereas if 
my voxel were “below” the skeleton, then the aforementioned equation would give 
its distance from the surface layer that is also below the skeleton, right?



That is correct.


Would there be, however, a way to compute the cortical depth of each cortical 
voxel from the outer surface layer of the cortical ribbon? I believe that would 
be distance t1(v) mentioned in the equations and text in p. 3199 of your paper, 
but I unfortunately wasn’t able to pinpoint that variable in the scripts. Is 
that variable hard-coded in the scripts, or would you recommend that I follow a 
different approach to calculate that (for instance set up a conditional 
argument where I use cortical depth = Thickness/2 – SkeletonDistance if the 
voxel is above the skeleton layer, and cortical depth = Thickness/2 + 
SkeletonDistance if the voxel is below the skeleton layer)?


t1(v) is the oneSidedThickness_partial variable in the MLI_thickness function. 
The algorithm, however, works pretty locally and cannot really distinguish 
between the inner and outer surfaces of the cortical ribbon. So, In order to 
use t1(v) for your purpose (or your other suggested approach), you would need a 
label for each voxel that says which surface the voxel is closer to. If you 
have masks for the subcortical areas (e.g. the white-matter mask) and the 
beyond-pial area (~(GM | WM)), you could create such a label by comparing the 
distance transform maps created from the two masks (by Matlab’s bwdist 
function). In fact, the distance transform from the latter mask might just give 
you the cortical depth that you are looking for.


Thank you again very much for your time and help!

Best,
Panos

From: 
freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu<mailto:freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu>
 
<freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu<mailto:freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu>>
 on behalf of Aganj, Iman 
<iag...@mgh.harvard.edu<mailto:iag...@mgh.harvard.edu>>
Date: Thursday, April 21, 2022 at 1:02 PM
To: Freesurfer support list 
<freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu<mailto:freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu>>
Subject: [External] Re: [Freesurfer] Cortical depth at each cortical voxel
Of course! Please let me know if you have any questions about the toolbox.

Best,
Iman

From: 
freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu<mailto:freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu>
 
<freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu<mailto:freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu>>
 On Behalf Of Fotiadis, Panagiotis
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2022 12:32 PM
To: Freesurfer support list 
<freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu<mailto:freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Freesurfer] Cortical depth at each cortical voxel

Hi Iman,

That is extremely helpful, thank you very much (also the paper is a great read)!

Best,
Panos


From: 
freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu<mailto:freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu>
 
<freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu<mailto:freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu>>
 on behalf of Aganj, Iman 
<iag...@mgh.harvard.edu<mailto:iag...@mgh.harvard.edu>>
Date: Thursday, April 21, 2022 at 12:06 PM
To: Freesurfer support list 
<freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu<mailto:freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu>>
Subject: [External] Re: [Freesurfer] Cortical depth at each cortical voxel
Hi Panos,

You can do such a volumetric analysis using this toolbox:

Code:  
https://secure-web.cisco.com/1Ieq0hfM465RoCoCk9wco5SWF8BC_F38Rs0ZRDkBh73dame7pnE-S99qyCsNJCATUXijLSLRxleMdRfb5QAl-uJ8ORhFONTWQo6AnfhTxEdmBr3lNVaHzbulZBvGbkDtD98tnMLTWH5efBvvV-yqly9MYvksa4qvS5F57NVM0TqAJJPtHHqfOhYiyk70kfNXi-zvQAUoNvudLeut-HzIxpqRyPmGC0QDh6USGFTw5-4W9gKFj4cV6q3eD9lYNtnSIvdlCBcpk-IJIFdsy9IE5VkgVo8W5zbZpdQ_je7lJfalVrpMuQmkmSWYyCskUjJ9w/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nitrc.org%2Fprojects%2Fthickness
Paper:  
https://secure-web.cisco.com/1Wk7ub4NZJZz9oZSlHhJlD1mFVnYi6cYEzY3JE-lRwNIZVw3eJTI_y7IB_0IEcy4Zl-Dv2hho1dtAOlrntWNUHAO1-DAnl2BfKlMlhjTuNJRUCxD948qIa-YdhSuN2MTruWNG1xgn4TFFhoK8yex8RIj7ozGgu_DqNJqM6_GPTy-c9hwntRH0-j5kOBCQpJ7pOKLb-QhJE1-Oe1MVQb3ZzoFVIWop20ky_O0DZKw2VuNtapYN7jf9e_sqMJtGzl60oC8-qS0fmvghiU6_p5Ws2z8I_R0hUEPSUhz0YFEekWEVwsvij9xO7qzqFLy3MvPc/https%3A%2F%2Fonlinelibrary.wiley.com%2Fdoi%2Fepdf%2F10.1002%2Fhbm.20740

You can apply the MLI_thickness function to the gray matter (soft or binary) 
mask, which returns the layer thickness at each voxel (Thickness) and the 
distance of each voxel to the center of the layer (SkeletonDistance). Cortical 
depth would then be SkeletonDistance at the given voxel subtracted from half of 
Thickness (at the voxel, or preferably on the skeleton for better accuracy). A 
tutorial is included in the EXAMPLE file.

Best,
Iman

From: 
freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu<mailto:freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu>
 
<freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu<mailto:freesurfer-boun...@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu>>
 On Behalf Of Fotiadis, Panagiotis
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2022 11:48 AM
To: freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu<mailto:freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu>
Subject: [Freesurfer] Cortical depth at each cortical voxel

Hi FS experts,

I was wondering whether there was a way to assign each cortical voxel within 
the T1w (volumetric) scan an index corresponding to its “cortical depth.” I 
have essentially taken the cortical ribbon .mgz file, assigned each cortical 
voxel a voxel ID, and wanted to associate each ID with its corresponding 
cortical depth. I would normally use the *h.sulc files but I didn’t think this 
would properly translate here since it’s a volumetric analysis.

Thank you in advance for your time and help!

Best
Panos

--
Panagiotis Fotiadis
Ph.D. Candidate | Neuroscience Graduate Group
Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania



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