Dan Wu1, Jiadi Xu2, Michael T. McMahon2, Peter C. M. van Zijl2, 3, Susumu Mori, 23, Jiangyang Zhang3
1Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medcine, Baltimore, MD, United States; 2F.M. Kirby Research Center for Functional Brain Imaging, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States; 3Russel H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University School of Medcine, Baltimore, MD, United States
In this study, we demonstrate the feasibility of collecting high resolution diffusion tensor images (DTI) of live mouse brains using a cryogenic probe in combination with fast imaging sequences. Multi-slice DTI data with a resolution of 0.12 mm x 0.12 mm x 0.5 mm could be acquired within 40 minutes, and three dimensional DTI data of the entire mouse brain at 0.125 mm isotropic resolution could be obtained within 2 hours. This resolution, which was previously only available with ex vivo imaging, enabled non-invasive reconstruction of fine white matter tracts of the thalamus.