Macroanatomy and 3D probabilistic atlas of the human insula

• Published in: NeuroImage (Orlando, Fla.) Vol. 150; pp. 88 - 98
• Main Authors: Faillenot, Isabelle, Heckemann, Rolf A., Frot, Maud, Hammers, Alexander
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 15.04.2017; Elsevier Limited; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adult; Anatomy, Artistic; Asymmetry; Atlases as Topic; Brain; Brain mapping; Cell and Molecular Biology; Cell- och molekylärbiologi; Cerebral Cortex; Cerebral Cortex - anatomy & histology; Computer-assisted image processing; Female; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - methods; Imaging, Three-Dimensional; Insula anatomy; Labeling; Life Sciences; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Magnetic resonance imaging methods; Male; Medical imaging; Middle Aged; Morphology; Neuroanatomy; Neuroimaging; Neurological models; Neurology; Neurons and Cognition; Neurosciences; Neurovetenskaper; NMR; Nuclear magnetic resonance; Pain; Radiologi och bildbehandling; Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging; Sex characteristics; Statistics and numerical data; Studies; Subdivisions; Substantia grisea; Young Adult; Statistics and numerical data; Magnetic resonance imaging methods; Neuroanatomy; Computer-assisted image processing; Insula anatomy; Neurological models; Sex characteristics
• ISSN: 1053-8119; 1095-9572; 1095-9572
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.01.073

The human insula is implicated in numerous functions. More and more neuroimaging studies focus on this region, however no atlas offers a complete subdivision of the insula in a reference space. The aims of this study were to define a protocol to subdivide insula, to create probability maps in the MNI152 stereotaxic space, and to provide normative reference volume measurements for these subdivisions. Six regions were manually delineated bilaterally on 3D T1 MR images of 30 healthy subjects: the three short gyri, the anterior inferior cortex, and the two long gyri. The volume of the insular grey matter was 7.7 ± 0.9cm3 in native space and 9.9 ± 0.6cm3 in MNI152 space. These volumes expressed as a percentage of the ipsilateral grey matter volume were minimally larger in women (2.7±0.2%) than in men (2.6±0.2%). After spatial normalization, a stereotactic probabilistic atlas of each subregion was produced, as well as a maximum-probability atlas taking into account surrounding structures. Automatically labelling insular subregions via a multi-atlas propagation and label fusion strategy (MAPER) in a leave-one-out experiment showed high spatial overlaps of such automatically defined insular subregions with the manually derived ones (mean Jaccard index 0.65, corresponding to a mean Dice index of 0.79), with an average mean volume error of 2.6%. Probabilistic and maximum probability atlases and the original delineations are available on the web under free academic licences. [Display omitted] •Macro-anatomical landmarks chosen to subdivide human insula into six regions.•Manually delineated 30 right & 30 left insulae on MRI and normalized to MNI152 space.•Probabilistic atlases of insular subregions available on the web.•Hammers_mith maximum probability atlas of whole brain updated (95 regions).•Volume of insula represents a slightly larger part of the brain in women than in men.