Differences in diffusion weighted imaging and resting-state functional connectivity between two culturally distinct populations of prairie vole

We used the highly prosocial prairie vole to test the hypothesis that higher-order brain structure, microarchitecture and functional connectivity, would differ between males from populations with distinctly different levels of prosocial behavior. Specifically, Males from Illinois (IL), who display high levels of prosocial behavior and F1 males from Kansas dams and Illinois males (KI), which display the lowest level of prosocial behavior and higher aggression. Behavioral differences between these males are associated with overexpression estrogen receptor alpha in the medial amygdala (MeA) and bed nucleus of the stria-terminalis (BST) and neuropeptide expression in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN). We compared apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), fractional anisotropy (FA), and BOLD resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) between males. The article is published in 'Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging' with DOI: /10.1016/j.bpsc.2020.08.014

Fc-Conn Data: The Functional Connectivity data is in "FcConnData.zip" folder. Once unzipped into 'FcConnData' folder it has two subfolders for 'IL' for Males from Illinois and ''KSIL" males from Kansas dams and Illinois males. Inside these folders there are separate folder for each subject (Vole). This subject folder contains the EPI Fc-Conn data in NIFTI (.nii) format along with mask and cropped file. The filenames of these files is self explanatory. The processing steps are explained in detail in article.

DTI Data: The DW-3D-EPI images were processed and analyzed using MATLAB (Mathworks, Natick, MA) and MedINRIA (version 1.9.0; http://www-sop.inria.fr/asclepios/software/MedINRIA/) software. This data is in "DTI_data.zip" file. Once unzipped into DTI_data folder, this has two subfolders 'IL' for Males from Illinois and ''KSIL" males from Kansas dams and Illinois males. All DWI raw data was converted from bruker format to img/hdr (Analyze) format via MATLAB and stored in individual folder (#_B900). The reserve folder contains the following computed images: ADC, FA, L1, L2, L3 and RD along with B0 image. Each of the extracted image files contains a ROI .nii file and a result excel sheet.

我们选用高度亲社会性的草原田鼠来验证这一假说：即来自亲社会行为水平显著不同的种群的雄性个体，其高级脑结构、微架构与功能连接模式存在差异。具体而言，来自伊利诺伊州（Illinois，IL）的雄性田鼠表现出高水平的亲社会行为；而由堪萨斯州雌鼠与伊利诺伊州雄鼠交配得到的F1代雄性田鼠（KI）则表现出最低水平的亲社会行为与更高的攻击倾向。这些雄性个体间的行为差异，与内侧杏仁核（medial amygdala，MeA）、终纹床核（bed nucleus of the stria-terminalis，BST）中雌激素受体α的过表达，以及室旁核（paraventricular nucleus，PVN）内的神经肽表达水平相关。我们对比了不同雄性个体的表观扩散系数（apparent diffusion coefficient，ADC）、各向异性分数（fractional anisotropy，FA）以及血氧水平依赖静息态功能连接（BOLD resting-state functional connectivity，rsFC）。本研究成果已发表于《Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging》，DOI为/10.1016/j.bpsc.2020.08.014。

Fc-Conn 数据：功能连接数据存储于"FcConnData.zip"压缩包中。解压至"FcConnData"文件夹后，将包含两个子文件夹：分别对应伊利诺伊州雄性田鼠的"IL"文件夹，以及由堪萨斯州雌鼠与伊利诺伊州雄鼠交配得到的雄性田鼠的"KSIL"文件夹。每个子文件夹内均包含按实验个体（田鼠）命名的独立文件夹，其中存储了NIFTI（.nii）格式的EPI功能连接数据，以及对应的掩膜文件与裁剪后文件，各文件名含义清晰直观。具体的预处理步骤已在发表论文中详细说明。

DTI 数据：DW-3D-EPI图像使用MATLAB（Mathworks，美国马萨诸塞州纳提克市）与MedINRIA（版本1.9.0；http://www-sop.inria.fr/asclepios/software/MedINRIA/）软件进行处理与分析。该数据集存储于"DTI_data.zip"压缩包中。解压至"DTI_data"文件夹后，将包含两个子文件夹："IL"（对应伊利诺伊州雄性田鼠）与"KSIL"（对应由堪萨斯州雌鼠与伊利诺伊州雄鼠交配得到的雄性田鼠）。所有DWI原始数据均通过MATLAB从bruker格式转换为img/hdr（Analyze）格式，并存储于以"#_B900"命名的独立文件夹中。reserve文件夹内包含以下计算得到的图像：ADC、FA、L1、L2、L3、RD以及B0图像。每个提取得到的图像文件均包含对应的ROI .nii文件与结果Excel表格。