1 Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA, 2 Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan, 3 Kennedy-Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA, 4 Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA
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Abstract |
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Introduction |
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Extreme forms have been recognized in human abortuses from the early second gestational month indicating that HPE has its formal origin as early as the period of hemispheric vesicle evagination and perhaps even earlier (Muller and O'Rahilly, 1989). This dating of origin accords with classical experimental manipulations in a range of vertebrates which have implicated a failure of the inductive mechanisms by which signals arising in tissues of the prechordal mesenchyme initiate and direct the course of specification of the ventral forebrain (Shimamura et al., 1995
; Golden, 1998
, 1999; Cohen and Shiota, 2002
). Contemporary molecular genetic analysis and cell biological studies in man and experimental animals have implicated the sonic hedgehog (Shh) and related signal transduction pathways as mediators of the inductive signals (Ming et al., 1998
, 2002; Roessler and Muenke, 1998
; Briscoe and Ericson, 1999
; Nanni et al., 1999
, 2000; Wallis et al., 1999
; Kelley, 2000
; Muenke and Cohen, 2000
).
At its most fundamental level, this signal transduction pathway involves multiple sequential and parallel molecular actions linking Shh and other ligands to transcription (Cooper et al., 1998; Golden, 1998
, 1999). Accordingly, at least a dozen discrete genetic loci in addition to Shh have been implicated to date (Muenke and Cohen, 2000
; Cohen and Shiota, 2002
). Yet it appears that those identified account for <20% of the probands which have undergone molecular genetic analysis (Bullen et al., 2001
; Cohen and Shiota, 2002
).
The histogenetic processes which link transcription to the pairing of forebrain structures and hemispheric evagination pose yet a second level of great complexity (Chiang et al., 1996; Walsh, 1999
; Walterhouse et al., 1999
; Roux et al., 2000
; Gofflot et al., 2001
). Primarily these processes must determine the map of structural topology. They must also enable growth behaviors which assure the emergence of form. Current clinical taxonomy and the descriptive approach upon which it rests are central to diagnosis and are usefully predictive with respect to neurological adaptive expectations. However, they are not concerned in a systematic way with the topological patterns of anomaly and their relation to the formal origin or malformation (i.e. with the most direct and explicit molecular and cell biological consequences of the primary inductive process).
We present here an MRI-based anatomic analysis of a series of seven brains with the semilobar holoprosencephalic form of the malformation. The analysis defines a set of common descriptors for a pattern of topological anomaly which is uniform for the set of seven brains. Certain of the descriptors are readily treated quantitatively and are found to correlate with more general reductions in brain and forebrain volumes.
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Materials and Methods |
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Patient recruitment was carried out through referral to the Carter Centers for Brain Research in Holoprosencephaly and Related Malformations, a national consortium funded by a nonprofit private foundation. The entry diagnosis of HPE was made on the basis of previous MRI studies. In most this had been confirmed by prior review of the diagnostic images by one of two pediatric neuroradiologists involved in the consortium (E.M. Simon and A.J. Barkovich, University of California, San Francisco, CA). The present subset includes images from all subjects judged to have the classical semilobar form of HPE from a total 16 subjects with HPE in the total study population. Three of the complement were judged to be either lobar or a variant semilobar form with features like the lobar brains. The other six were alobar. The topological features of the remaining nine brains will be the subject of a separate study. The seven comprising the present set, designated the telencephalic 1 (or T1) series, ranged in age from 0.3 to 6.1 years at the time of imaging.
The MRI scans for the present analysis were obtained only for clinical indications, such as new neurological symptoms and/or signs, if there had been no previous diagnostic MRI, or if there were concerns about increased intracranial pressure. The study was approved by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Institutional Review Board. Informed consent was obtained in advance with respect to utilization of the neuroimaging data and the subsequent investigative purposes by the research team of the Carter Centers. Patients were evaluated by a physician and sedation nurse prior to sedation (chloral hydrate at 75 mg/kg, with 25 mg/kg extra dosage if needed) prior to MRI scanning. Patients were rescheduled if there were symptoms of respiratory distress or if there were any active infection. The sedation nurse monitored the patient throughout the imaging session, with the physician nearby. If a patient awoke the imaging session was terminated.
All confirmed HPE cases were also offered the opportunity to participate in an IRB approved study of genetic causes of HPE. Although all subjects included in the present study underwent screening for mutations at the Shh, Zic2, Six3 and TGIF loci, no mutations were found in this cohort.
Normative Subjects
Normal infant and preschool children could not be imaged without clinical indication for the purposes of this study. However, a limited series of normative brain images were available with IRB approval where the studies had been obtained for clinical indications. In all instances the images were judged to be anatomically normal after expert neuroradiological review. The normative series included six children, four male, varying in age from 15 months to 6 years at time of imaging. For all but one, images were obtained because of seizures. In one a seizure had been suspected to have occurred after a mild, possibly concussive head injury. In one a seizure with fever occurred after MMM and DPT inoculations. A sister of the last mentioned, 4 years older and otherwise normal, had had a seizure under the same circumstance and was otherwise judged to be normal. For a single child in the normative series, the indication was mild developmental delay and impaired socialization.
MR Image Acquisition
Subjects with HPE
All subjects with HPE underwent brain MR imaging examination at the Kennedy-Krieger Institute on a 1.5 T MR system (ACS NT Power Trak 6000, Philips Medical Systems, Best, Netherlands) using a standard quadrature head coil. The conventional brain imaging protocol consisted of sagittal T1-weighted spin-echo (SE) (550 ms/20 ms TR/TE), axial T2-weighted double-echo SE (3000 ms/20 ms, 80 ms TR/TE1, TE2), axial fast fluid-attenuated inversion-recovery (FLAIR) (6000 ms/120 ms/2000 ms TR/Teff/TI), coronal three dimensional spoiled gradient recalled echo (3-D SPGR) (35 ms/6ms/45° TR/TE/flip angle, 1.21.5 mm slice thickness), coronal fast phase-sensitive inversion recovery (PSIR) (3000 ms/40 ms/200 ms TR/Teff/TI) imaging.
Normative subjects
MR image sets were acquired at the Massachusetts General Hospital on a 1.5 T MR system (Signa; General Electric, Milwaukee, WI) using a standard quadrature head coil. The imaging protocol included a coronal 3-D SPGR (25 ms/69 ms/2535° TR/TE/flip angle, 1.5 mm slice thickness) as well as an axial T2-weighted fast spin echo (40006000 ms/95102 ms TR/TEeff).
Our prior experience with morphometry based upon T1 weighted images acquired on the same subject from various high performance imaging systems in different institutions has been that there is excellent accord in volume estimates (Filipek et al., 1994). Given the great volumetric variances encountered among the HPE subjects in the present series and the great difference in volumes when these are compared with the normative brains, any small variance contributed by differential volume estimates from the different imaging systems will be trivial compared to the variances due to differential brain growth.
Anatomic Analysis
The routine of image analysis which precedes the anatomic analysis operation from 3-D T1 weighted image sets has been previously detailed (Filipek et al., 1994). Positional normalization, a step in the processing of the normative brains, could not be done with HPE brains because anomalies of interhemispheric fissure and other mid-line landmarks that are essential to the normalization procedure.
The brain was primarily divided into forebrain, brainstem and cerebellum, and the forebrain was segmented by standard algorithms into cerebral cortex, cerebral white matter, caudate, putamen, pallidum, thalamus, hippocampus, and amygdala (Filipek et al., 1994; Caviness et al., 1996
). For the normative brains no adjustment of the routine standard to the laboratory was required. However, there were anomalous anatomically variant features of the HPE brains that were separately segmented by hand driven cursor. At the completion of the segmentation operations, volumes for brain regions were computed from the imaging parameters and the number of voxels assigned to that structure in the course of the segmentation routines (Kennedy et al., 1989
).
Morphometry
We seek to characterize both the anatomic volumetric consequences of the disorder as well as to the nature, degree and spatial distribution of the anatomic anomaly. To this end, we make the following classes of observation.
Normative Age-to-volume Growth Function
The age range of the HPE and normative subjects is one of rapid brain growth of the normal brain. Moreover, normative and HPE subjects are not directly matched for age although they distribute through the same age range. For this reason comparisons and correlations to be performed are based upon a normal growth function as characterized by a logarithmic function of age derived from our normative series. In general, this is represented as follows:
where y is brain volume and x is age, and and ß are the fitting coefficients. With this normative function for each anatomic structure, we can then calculate the observed deviation that a particular subject has relative to this function (see forebrain volume example in Fig. 1). This formulation of the relationship between brain volume and age is similar to other non linear formulations which have attempted to define this relationship throughout the full fetal through postnatal interval of rapid brain growth (Lemire et al., 1975
; Kretschmann et al., 1976
; Kretschmann et al., 1986
; Pfefferbaum et al., 1994
). Here this expression is used as the basis for estimates of the normalized percentage volumes of the brains with HPE.
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The analysis includes a quantitative treatment of topological divisions in the HPE brain with correlations between these and growth. This required that we first set up parameters by which to express quantitatively the grades and extents of the grades of topological abnormality. For comparative quantitative treatment of anomaly localization we have partitioned the prosencephalon into three segments (Fig. 2) that are normally represented bilaterally: (i) a diencephalic (DD) segment extending from the subthalamus to the suprachiasmatic junction with telencephalon; (ii) a telencephalic (TT) rostral interhemispheric midline segment extending from the DD segment through the septal limb of the prosencephalic ventricles to the hippocampal commissure; and (iii) the DT segment which diverges laterally from the midline to follow the temporal limb of the choroid fissure to the amygdala. This segment is throughout in immediate lateral relation to the diencephalon.
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Results |
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The seven brains with HPE are all semilobar by current diagnostic criteria. Figure 3 shows the surface configuration of mild and severe examples relative to a control subject. We recognize three grades of abnormality with respect to cerebral form (Fig. 7). The first and most severe is where the right and left cortical surfaces are continuous without interhemispheric fissure. This is encountered rostrally, including orbital and polar regions. The appearance of the frontal region is such as to suggest that insular regions are rotated from their normal lateral position to a more medial and orbital position at the expense of orbitofrontral and prefrontal cortical areas (see also Yakovlev, 1959). The claustra, intervening between putamen and insular cortex are conjoined across the midline. The second grade, intermediate in degree, is where there emerges a shallow midsagittal interhemispheric fissure. Still there remains a recognizable cortex continuity crossing the midline at the fundus of the shallow fissure. This is variably encountered as one progresses posteriorly toward the midcoronal level. The fissure deepens to full depth with further progression posteriorly. An orderly slope as the fissure deepens is somewhat disrupted by irregularities of the cortical buckling, particularly rostrally where the fissure begins and cortex is tucked under the more rostral non-fissured cortex. The third and mildest grade is where the fissure reaches full depth and its fundus forms the midline roof of the ventricular system. This is encountered further posteriorly. Where the fundus is the ventricular roof, it is part of a midline gray matter continuity or seam to be characterized more fully in the following section.
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The Seam
The core of the topological anomaly is the rostro-caudally aligned midline gray matter seam that lies at the surface of the ventricular cavity throughout its extent (Figs 48). The relationship of seam to the exterior surface of the hemisphere and to deep nuclear structures and ventricular system are presented in the 3-D image reconstruction in Figure 8. The seam arises rostrally in continuity with the anterior suprachiasmatic hypothalamus. At its rostral extreme it is formed of caudal orbitofrontal cortex and the heads of caudate/accumbens nuclei. Tissue normally part of the septal nuclei, if also present, is not recognizable at the resolution of MRI. Anterioventrally, the head of caudate/accumbens is continuous with the anterior ventral putamen. The striatal nuclei become paired and diverge with posterior progression. The rostrum of the seam encases the rostral tip of the forebrain ventricular system. As it continues caudally above the ventricular cavity, it forms a bridge between neocortex of the two hemispheres where the interhemispheric fissure approaches full depth. Whereas its signal intensity is similar to that of cortex, its margins are irregular and fragmented, contrasting with the regularity of contour of laminate neocortex. Caudally it terminates where it abuts the rudimentary body of the corpus callosum.
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The topology of the ventricular system is anomalous only in its septal limb where there is continuity between telencephalic and diencephalic ventricular space (Figs 46). Thus, continuing caudally from the callosal decussation, the choroid fissures are closed in relation to fully formed choroid plexus. The ventricular space including trigone and temporal horns is normally paired and separate. Rostrally, on the other hand, the septal limb of the choroid fissure is splayed open. Structures which normally partition the two rostral telencephalic and the midline diencephalic ventricular spaces are absent. These include choroid plexus, septum pellucidum, septal nuclei, fornix and the fiber systems normally separating septal nuclei from orbital and subcallosal neocortex and other basal forebrain nuclear structures. As noted above, not excluded is the presence of undifferentiated septal components in the most rostral extreme of the seam. Foramina of Monro are not defined. Rostral to the genu of the internal capsule the telencephalic ventricular spaces converge with the diencephalic which narrows to a rounded tip at its rostral extreme. This rostral extremity of the ventricular space is ensheathed by the rostral extent of the gray matter seam.
Forebrain Volume and Topologic Anomaly
Volume
The seven HPE subjects in this series show substantially reduced total brain as well as forebrain, telencephalic and diencephalic volume with respect to a series of normative brains of corresponding age (Table 1). They are uniform with respect to the topology of the seam and other forebrain structures but vary with respect to the extent and grade of anomaly within this uniform topology. The growth functions calculated for the normal subjects for each of the volumetric structures was quite good. The estimated average age-adjusted volumetric deviation for the HPE series was 55% of the normal expectation for the total brain volume (52, 51 and 68% for forebrain, telencephalon and diencephalons, respectively) but with wide variation in these estimates.
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The method used to estimate age-relative deviation of brain growth from the normative series was also used to estimate the normalized percentage lengths of DD, TT, and DT segments in the HPE brains (Figs 9 and 10). For the overall series the average of the normalized total length DD, TT and DT segments as well as the average for each of these segments is 90% of the average normalized values (Table 2). Whereas these average lengths are close to the predicted normal value, there is substantial variability among the individual brains with HPE with coefficients of variation 2- to 4-fold those of the corresponding measures in the normal brains.
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Topologic to Volume Correlations. Strong and highly significant correlations hold in the T1 HPE series between the total length as well as the separate DD and TT segments and the volume of the telencephalon (Table 3). The TT and DT measures do not correlate with the volume of the diencephalon. Correlations between the DT segments and the telencephalon and diencephalon volumes are weak and not significant. In the normative brains, by contrast to the brains with HPE, there was no correlation between the topologic and volumetric parameters. We also correlate brain and forebrain volumetric deficit with length of each grade of forebrain anomaly. Strong and highly significant correlations are observed between the linear extent of the abnormal topologic grade 3 (full-depth fissure with seam) segment but not those of abnormal topologic grades 1 and 2 segments and the telencephalic and diencephalic volumes.
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Discussion |
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In this set of brains with semilobar HPE we find that the anomaly of specification is limited to structures lying within the TT topological segment. Specifically structures which are either not specified or anomalous in their specified characteristics are the septal nuclei, dorsal hippocampal the anlagen of the septal hippocampus (induseum griseum and forniceal projection) and rostral midline neocortical structures. Secondly the consequences of inductive failure for the conduct of histogenetic processes in paramedian structures appear to be expressed according to a rostral to caudal gradient of declining severity. In particular there appears to be a rostral to caudal failure of differential growth affecting midline and immediately paramedian (as opposed to lateral convexity) neocortex. Thus, the evagination of the cerebral hemispheres reflects massive proliferation and growth of the telencephalic cell populations where this is most prominent in the convexity as opposed to the midline (Sidman and Rakic, 1982; Caviness et al., 1995
; Hebert et al., 2002
). A corresponding pattern of differential proliferation and growth underlies the formation of the olfactory bulbs (Gong and Shipley, 1995
; Hebert et al., 2002
).
Within this framework we interpret the three grades of forebrain anomaly as follows (Figure 11).
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Current models of the origin of HPE hold that Shh and related signaling systems appear primarily to set in motion the inductive processes critical to the origin of the malformation. The source of Shh is the prechordal mesenchyme so that its proximate field of effect must be the extreme ventral midline of the neural tube, corresponding to the rostral and ventral boundary region of the diencephalictelelencephalic anlagen (Shimamura et al., 1995; Weed et al., 1997
; Wallis and Muenke, 1999
; Patten and Placzek, 2000
). This zone would become the region of transition between suprachiasmatic diencephalon and telencephalic lamina terminalis, that is, the TT segment. In each of these brains the topologic abnormality is maximum in this zone. However, in all it extends well beyond this zone, throughout much if not all the TT segment. This corresponds sequentially from rostroventral to dorsal to zones where FGF8 and BMP2/4 rather than Shh, are the primary morphogenetic agents. Whereas experimental evidence has not yet directly implicated these signaling systems in the origin of the HPE malformation, it is pertinent that in the BMPr1a KO there is failure of specification of the septal limb of the choroid plexus at the telencephalic hemisphere margin (Hebert et al., 2002
). This is associated with inchoate overgrowth of the affected zone, reproducing a structure not unlike the seam encountered in these brains. Normally the action of BMP morphogen in this zone induces a cessation of proliferation and specification of choroid plexus, both of which are postulated to have been disrupted in this series of brains with HPE. To the extent that the model is valid there is the implication that activations within the dorsal BMP pathways and perhaps also that of FGF8 are downstream contingencies of a normal activation sequence initiated by the Shh signaling system (Hebert et al., 2002
).
Whereas the seven brains in the present series are uniform in their topology they are greatly variable respecting the extent and degrees of each of the several patterns of topologic abnormality. Of note is the observation that there are quite substantial direct correlations between the telencephalic segment lengths and forebrain volume deficits implying that the conduct of the inductive process as it leads to specification is also profoundly determinant with respect to cell production and growth. In the normal brain, by contrast, there is essentially no correlation between the topologic segment measures and the variance of actual versus predicted size. Whereas the basis for this dramatic difference is not known, there is at least the suggestion that below some normal threshold of inductive effect there is a dependence of forebrain volume upon the level of inductive effect. Where subthreshold and to a variable degree in the HPE brains, brains are not only small but coefficients of variation are high. In the normal brain with this threshold exceeded, growth is modulated more dominantly by postindeuctive histogenetic interactions.
For the present, the gradations of anomaly in this series can not be matched to a molecular basis where a mutation in the Shh or other currently recognized HPE loci has been identified in the series. It is perhaps pertinent in this regard that the HPE anomaly as expressed in these brains is both mild and topologically uniform. With respect to gravity of malformation, a minimum estimate places the incidence of HPE at conception at 1/250 (Matsunaga and Shiota, 1977), with <1/20 000 surviving to term (Bullen et al., 2001
), a large proportion of which succumb in early postnatal life (Cohen, 1989a
; Bullen et al., 2001
). With respect to topological uniformity, the seven brains in this series contrast greatly with the larger set of brains from which they were drawn in our own study series of brains with HPE, and that series is only a limited sampling of the topologic range encountered in the literature. In any event, we infer from both the mildness and uniformity of the series that the points of mutation in the series are not only remotely downstream from the primary Shh inductive signal but also reflect mutation at a convergent point in the multiple pathways that subtend the inductive process. A test of this hypothesis must await further mutation discovery.
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Notes |
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Address correspondence to V.S. Caviness, MGH-CMA, 149 13th Street, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA. Email: caviness{at}helix.mgh.harvard.edu.
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