Venkata Veerendranadh Chebrolu1, Tianhao Zhang2, Hariharan Ravishankar1, Sumit Niogi3, John A Tsiouris3, and Luca Marinelli4
1GE Global Research, Bangalore, India, 2GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI, United States, 3Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York, NY, United States, 4GE Global Research, Niskayuna, NY, United States
Synopsis
The purpose of this work is to derive single-subject level
inferences for volumetry features in mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) at
multiple time points after initial trauma using machine learning methods. 78
uncomplicated mTBI subjects were scanned three days (32 subjects), seven days
(61 subjects), one month (56) and three months (42 subjects) post injury to
derive volumetery features. 23 controls were also scanned. Logistic-regression
models were used to identify important volumetry features that jointly describe
the mTBI effects at single-subject level. Pallidus, supratentorial and whole-brain
volumetry features together provide single-subject level signature for mTBI at
multiple time-points after injury. Introduction
Mild traumatic brain
injury (mTBI) affects more than 2.5 million people per year in the United States.
MRI based volumetry has been used to study structural changes associated with
mTBI. Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies on brain volumetry in mTBI observed
group level changes in regional volumes such as hippocampus and caudate (1-3). However, inferences at single-subject level remain to be determined. The purpose of this work is to
derive single-subject level inferences for volumetry features in mTBI at
multiple time points after initial trauma using machine learning methods.
Methods
T1-weighted MRI scan
with 1mm isotropic resolution was performed on 78 uncomplicated mTBI subjects
and 23 controls using GE 3T Signa MR750 scanner and a 32 channel brain coil
under institutional guidelines. The mTBI subjects were scanned three days (32
subjects), seven days (61 subjects), one month (56) and three months (42
subjects) post injury. The scan instances at multiple times after injury are
labelled as encounters 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. The T1-weighted images were
used to segment the brain to derive whole-brain, supratentorial, hippocampus, thalamus,
caudate, putamen, pallidus and amygdala volumes (4). Percentage asymmetry between left
and right sub-cortical region volumes was computed as 100 × (left volume –
right volume)/ [0.5 × (left volume + right volume)]. A suffix of L for left
volume, R for right volume and Asym for asymmetry was applied in the labels
used to show the volumetry results. The volumes were covariate corrected for
age, gender, handedness and years of education using multiple linear regression
model. Logistic Regression (LR) models were used at each encounter to identify
important volumetric changes at single-subject level. A ten-fold
cross-validation frame-work was used to reduce the effects of over-fitting on
the LR models.
Results
Figure 1 shows the coefficients of the LR model
with optimal single-subject level classification performance at different
encounters. The average accuracy of the LR models from ten-fold
cross-validation at different encounters was between 57 to 73%. The lowest
performance was at encounter 1 (3 days post injury), where none of the
volumetry feature LR coefficients had significant p-values. Supratentorial
(encounters 2, 3, and 4), whole-brain (encounters 2, 3, and 4) and pallidus (3,
and 4) volumes had significant p-values (p<0.05) for LR coefficients at
later encounters. The coefficients of the derived LR models need to be
interpreted together due to the presence of multi co-linearity between
different volumetry features. Figure 2 shows the effect of multi co-linearity at
encounter 4, which was also observed at encounters 1, 2 and 3 (results not
shown).
Discussion
Single-subject
level inferences are needed for clinical translation of findings. In this work Logistic
regression models were used to identify important volumetry features that
jointly describe the mTBI effects at single-subject level. The classification
accuracy using LR was higher at encounters 2 and 3 (~70%) compared to 1 and 4
(~60%). The lower performance accuracy
at encounters 1 and 4 could be because of either: i) non-significant volumetric
differences between controls and mTBI subjects or ii) non-linear relation
between volumes and mTBI at durations before 7 days and after 30 days (LR is
linear model).
One of the limitations of this work is the
variability of subject return for subsequent encounters. Only 17 of 78 subjects
were present consistently for all encounters. The variation in the results
across different encounters could be due to the variation in the subjects. However, the volumes were
covariate corrected for age, gender, handedness and years of education of the
subjects scanned at different encounters. Importantly, the LR models were
verified using ten-fold cross-validation framework. These factors suggest that
the changes observed across encounters may be primarily from the changes caused
by mTBI longitudinally.
The
interpretation of effects of mTBI on individual volumetry features using
logistic regression coefficients is non-trivial due to multi co-linearity. Future
work would use Classification and regression tree (CART) (5,6) models to build
non-linear models and also to provide interpretability of changes and
interactions between volumetry features in clinical setting.
Conclusions
Pallidus, supratentorial
and whole brain volumetry features together provide single-subject level signature
for mTBI at multiple time-points after injury.
Acknowledgements
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