MRI brain templates of the male Yucatan minipig

The pig is growing in popularity as an experimental animal because its gyrencephalic brain is similar to humans. Currently, however, there is a lack of appropriate brain templates to support functional and structural neuroimaging pipelines. The primary contribution of this work is an average volume from an iterative, non-linear registration of 70 five-to seven-month-old male Yucatan minipigs. In addition, several aspects of this study are unique, including the comparison of linear and non-linear template generation, the characterization of a large and homogeneous cohort, an analysis of effective resolution after averaging, and the evaluation of potential in template bias as well as a comparison with a template from another minipig species using a left-out validation set. We found that within our highly homogeneous cohort, non-linear registration produced better templates, but only marginally so. Although our T1-weighted data were resolution limited, we preserved effective resolution across the multi-subject average, produced templates that have high gray-white matter contrast and demonstrate superior registration accuracy compared to an alternative minipig template.

Automated summary

This study utilized 70 five-to-seven-month-old male Yucatan minipigs for iterative, non-linear registration to create an average volume. The research is unique in its comparison of linear and non-linear template generation, characterization of a large homogeneous cohort, analysis of effective resolution after averaging, and evaluation of potential in template bias.