Hao Huang1, Linda J. Richards2,
Paul Yarowsky3, Susumu Mori4
1Advanced Imaging Research Center,
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States; 2Queensland
Brain Institute, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Australia; 3Department
of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, University of Maryland,
Baltimore, MD, United States; 4Department of Radiology, Johns
Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States
The
cerebral wall of the fetal brain contains multiple layers and undergoes
active structural changes during fetal development. DTI imaging can clearly
identify three layers in the cerebral wall, which are cortical plate,
subplate and inner layer. In this study, we qualitatively and quantitatively
characterized the inner layer with both DTI and histology and found that
radial structure, rather than the tangential structure of fetal white matter,
is dominant in the inner layer during second trimester. Fractional anisotropy
values in the inner layer are higher than those in the suplate but lower than
those in the cortical plate.