Carsten Stueber1,2, Alexey Dimov1, Kofi Deh1, David Pitt2, and Yi Wang1
1Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, United States, 2Yale School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States
Quantitative
susceptibility mapping (QSM) provides a quantitative MRI contrast, which reflects
the local iron concentration. Thus, QSM allows to determine the geometries of iron-rich
deep grey matter nuclei including substantia nigra (SN) and subthalamic nucleus
(STN). These basal nuclei are of particular interest in Parkinson’s disease. However,
the measured dimensions need to be validated in histology using post-mortem
human brain tissue. In this work, we show the concordance of the geometries
measured in QSM and histology using Perls’ iron stain, which opens the door to
use QSM as a pre-surgical mapping for deep brain stimulation targeting the STN.
