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Abstract #2124

Cortical Fiber Insertions and Automated Layer Classification in Human Motor Cortex from 9.4T Diffusion MRI

Matteo Bastiani1, 2, Ana-Maria Oros-Peusquens2, Daniel Brenner2, Klaus Moellenhoff2, Arne Seehaus1, 3, Avdo Celik2, Jrg Felder2, Andreas Matusch2, Ralf Galuske3, Hansjrgen Bratzke4, Nadim Jon Shah2, 5, Rainer Goebel1, Alard Roebroeck1

1Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands; 2Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-4), Research Centre Jlich, Jlich, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany; 3Department of Biology, TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany; 4Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, JWG-University, Frankfurt/Main, Hesse, Germany; 5Faculty of Medicine, JARA, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany


Ultra-high resolution diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) on ex vivo tissue represents a unique tool to investigate human brain anatomy at a microscopic scale. This study focuses on two separate aspects which can be derived from high isotropic resolution HARDI data analysis on post mortem human tissue: i) we reconstruct and analyze the short association fibers connecting human motor and premotor area and fanning cortical insertions in the gyral crown and ii) we distinguish the majority of cortical layers by automatic clustering of their diffusion characteristics. Both aspects are validated using myelin stains of the sectioned tissue.