Abstract #4543

Diffusion MRI revealed mild optic nerve fiber degeneration during Chimpanzee aging

Chun-Xia Li¹, Yumei Yan¹, Longchuan Li², Todd Preuss³, James G Herndon³, Xiaoping Hu⁴, and Xiaodong Zhang^1,3

¹Yerkes Imaging Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States, ²Department of Pediatric, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, United States, ³Division of Neuroscience and Neurological diseases, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States, ⁴Department of bioengineering, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, United States

Aging effects on the optic nerve (ON) bundles of chimpanzees were investigated systematically with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Mean diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (AD or λ_ll), radial diffusivity (RD or λ_τ) and fractional anisotropy (FA) showed mild and proportional changes from youth to elder adulthood, and significant increase of MD and RD were seen in elder chimpanzees. However, the changes are much milder than previous studies in the ON of monkey and human brain white matter. The unique evolution pattern in chimpanzee white mater aging may grant further investigations to unveil the neural substrate mechanism of the human brain aging.

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