1Department
of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States; 2Center
for In Vivo Microscopy, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, United
States; 3Brain Imaging Analysis Center, Duke University Medical
Center, Durham, NC, United States
We applied susceptibility tensor imaging (STI) to study the complex nephron structure in a mouse kidney. When using DTI, we found that it was only able to track tubules in the inner medulla. STI, on the other hand, was able to overcome this limitation and tracked tubules beyond the inner medulla. The kidney was imaged with 17 orientations using a 3D multi-echo gradient echo sequence at 9.4T. Measures of anisotropy in tortuous and straight segments were consistent with the uriniferous tubule structure determined from microscopy. STI provides a particularly novel contrast mechanism to assess the tubule microstructure and composition.