Ex vivo diffusion MRI of the human brain: Technical challenges and recent advances

Alard Roebroeck*, Karla L Miller, Manisha Aggarwal

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal(Systematic) Review article peer-review

Abstract

This review discusses ex vivo diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) as an important research tool for neuroanatomical investigations and the validation of in vivo dMRI techniques, with a focus on the human brain. We review the challenges posed by the properties of post-mortem tissue, and discuss state-of-the-art tissue preparation methods and recent advances in pulse sequences and acquisition techniques to tackle these. We then review recent ex vivo dMRI studies of the human brain, highlighting the validation of white matter orientation estimates and the atlasing and mapping of large subcortical structures. We also give particular emphasis to the delineation of layered gray matter structure with ex vivo dMRI, as this application illustrates the strength of its mesoscale resolution over large fields of view. We end with a discussion and outlook on future and potential directions of the field.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere3941
Number of pages14
JournalNMR in Biomedicine
Volume32
Issue number4
Early online date4 Jun 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2019

Keywords

  • Journal Article
  • WEIGHTED MRI
  • STRUCTURE TENSOR ANALYSIS
  • WATER RELAXATION
  • ex vivo
  • HISTOLOGICAL VALIDATION
  • cortical layers
  • white matter
  • FORMALIN FIXATION
  • gray matter
  • IN-VIVO
  • diffusion MRI
  • POSTMORTEM HUMAN BRAINS
  • SPIN-ECHO
  • STATE FREE PRECESSION
  • HUMAN CONNECTOME PROJECT
  • validation

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