Abstract #3216

Ultra-High-Resolution Diffusion Tensor MRI Detects Early Axonal Connectivity Anomalies in Hippocampal Regions of ALS Mice

Rodolfo G Gatto^1,2, Manish Y Amin³, Ariel Finkielsztein⁴, Ronen Sumagin⁴, Thomas H Mareci⁵, and Richard L Magin¹

¹Bioengineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States, ²Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States, ³Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States, ⁴Department of Pathology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States, ⁵Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States

Ultra-High field (UHF) MRI has been in continuous development as a new tool to investigate ultrastructural microscopic details in neuropathology. In this study we use UHF-MRI (17.6T) to investigate presymptomatic changes in the hippocampus of animal models of ALS (G93A-SOD1 mice). Using an ALS fluorescent transgenic mouse reporter and optical confocal microscopy, we demonstrated that microstructural changes detected by MRI diffusion can be related to very early alterations in axonal connectivity. This study constitutes a stepping stone for the application of more complex diffusion models in inhomogeneous brain tissue as a non-invasive exploration of neuropathology in ALS.

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