Abstract #4312

High angular resolution diffusion MRI tractography-based thalamic parcellation of postmortem fetal brain in the second trimester

Sheng-Min Huang¹, Kuan-Hung Cho¹, Koping Chang², Pei-Hsin Huang^2,3, and Li-Wei Kuo^1,4

¹Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Nanomedicine, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli, Taiwan, ²Department of Pathology, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, ³Graduate Institute of Pathology, National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan, ⁴Institute of Medical Device and Imaging, National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan

Proper fiber connections between cerebral areas are particularly essential to build brain functions. As a central relay, the thalamus plays an important role in regulating diverse brain functions. Here, we aimed to investigate the thalamo-cortical connections and thalamic parcellation of ex vivo fetal brains in the second trimester using high-resolution postmortem diffusion MRI tractography on 3T. Diffusion images with 333 µm isotropic voxel size were acquired and tractography-based thalamic parcellation was performed. The segregated thalamic patterns were found as similar as adult’s ones reported previously. Our results showed the thalamic development and demonstrated the capability of postmortem diffusion MRI tractography.

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