Abstract #0771

Huang H, van Zijl P, Mori S, Richards L, Xue R

DT-MRI has been proved to be an effective technique for the study of normal and injured developing human brain. High resolution DTI data was acquired for fixed fetal brains from 13 to 21 gestational weeks. High contrasts from diffusion tensor can delineate most neural structures of developing fetal brains. To quantify the correlation of the primary eigenvector orientation and cortical surface morphology, the angles between the normal vectors of cortical surface and primary eigenvector of diffusion tensor were measured to reveal the growth pattern of cortical surface. DTI not only provides the high contrast for structure identification and 3D reconstruction, but also helps understanding of cortical surface folding.