SubCortexMesh: A Python toolbox for surface-based analysis of subcortical brain regions

Abstract

Neuroimaging research focusing on subcortical brain regions showed that they play a role in a wide range of cognitive functions and associated their structural alterations to various psychiatric disorders. Methods to analyse such structures were developed to observe changes, not simply in terms of volumes, but in terms of surfaces, which are able to detect subtle and local changes in shape and geometrical configuration. Such advanced analyses have however been largely restricted to command line environments with relatively limited access to Python users or researchers with low technical expertise. We present SubCortexMesh as a user-friendly toolbox which covers automated surface estimation from popular subcortical volume segmentations (FreeSurfer and the Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain Software Library (FSL)), computes shape-related vertex-wise metrics (thickness, surface area and curvature) for whole cohorts and includes statistical analyses. This is all done inside Python, automatically computing all subjects of a given preprocessed directory, with the explicit intent to minimise steps and manual coding required from the users. SubCortexMesh includes statistical tools which allow conventional random field theory-based cluster analyses on native subject metrics, standardised within common surface templates, thus containing a whole workflow necessary to run an up-to-date shape-wise subcortical analyses in one package.