Abstract #0053
Imaging gray matter in human brainstem in vivo by high spatial resolution Diffusion Tensor Imaging at 7 Tesla
Marta Bianciardi 1 , Nicola Toschi 1,2 , Cornelius Eichner 1 , Kawin Setsompop 1 , Florian Beissner 1 , Vitaly Napadow 1 , Jonathan R Polimeni 1 , and Lawrence L Wald 1
1
Department of Radiology, A.A. Martinos
Center for Biomedical Imaging, MGH, Harvard Medical
School, Boston, MA, United States,
2
Department
of Medicine, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome,
Italy
The human brainstem plays an important role in several
vital functions, including sleep, and respiration. Our
current knowledge of gray matter (GM) structure within
the brainstem mostly derives from ex-vivo studies. Aim
of this work was to develop novel in-vivo MRI-tools to
identify GM-structure. We employed in-vivo high
spatial-resolution DTI at 7Tesla, and scrutinized the
contrast in DTI-maps, including fractional-anisotropy
(FA). In single subject FA-maps, major clusters of
brainstem-nuclei were visible with high contrast
including the median-raphe-nucleus, the
reticular-formation, and the vestibular/olivary/pontine
nuclei. High-resolution DTI is a promising tool to
delineate GM-structure in the brainstem in-vivo on a
subject-by-subject basis.
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