Tamar
Blumenfeld-Katzir1, Ofer Pasternak2, Yaniv Assaf1
1Neurobiology Department, Tel-Aviv
University, Tel-Aviv, Israel; 2Brigham and Women's Hospital,
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
We
utilized DTI to follow up on micro-structural changes that occur following a
spatial memory task. We scanned rats before and after water maze task and
compared their MRI scans using voxel-based statistics. Significant changes in
the various DTI parameters were found in a multitude of brain regions
including the limbic system and white matter systems. The changes in the DTI
indices were found to correlate with immuno-reactivity staining of myelin,
synapses and astrocytes. Using these observations, we conclude that DTI can
be used as an in-vivo probe of structural plasticity both in gray matter and
white matter.