Ping Wang1, Suzanne Wehrli2, Elizabeth Stambrook1, Christos Davatzikos3, Ragini Verma3, Thomas Floyd1,4
1Anesthesiology & Critical Care, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA; 2NMR Core Facility, The Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA; 3Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA; 4Neurology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
The Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat (SHR) is phenotypically characterized by hypertension by age 4 months, with cerebrovascular changes evidenced by age 6 months. The SHR is widely used in research for its similarities with humans suffering from hypertension related disease. MRI-based phenotyping of the SHR brain may offer further insight into stroke and cognitive impairment in this strain and its appropriateness for comparative investigations into human disease. The purpose of this work is to longitudinally assess the hypertension related changes in brain microarchitecture of this important disease model, the SHR, using 3D high resolution DTI at 9.4T.