TY - JOUR
T1 - Neurite density from magnetic resonance diffusion measurements at ultrahigh field
T2 - Comparison with light microscopy and electron microscopy
AU - Jespersen, Sune N.
AU - Bjarkam, Carsten R.
AU - Nyengaard, Jens R.
AU - Chakravarty, M. Mallar
AU - Hansen, Brian
AU - Vosegaard, Thomas
AU - Østergaard, Leif
AU - Yablonskiy, Dmitriy
AU - Nielsen, Niels Chr
AU - Vestergaard-Poulsen, Peter
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors wish to thank the Danish National Research foundation (CFIN and inSpin), and the Danish Council for Strategic Research, for funding. SNJ thanks Martin Carlsen and Daniel Otykier for technical assistance. The histological lab assistance of Ms. Dorete Jensen is greatly acknowledged. The authors thank two anonymous reviewers whose comments led to improvements of the paper.
PY - 2010/1/1
Y1 - 2010/1/1
N2 - Due to its unique sensitivity to tissue microstructure, diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has found many applications in clinical and fundamental science. With few exceptions, a more precise correspondence between physiological or biophysical properties and the obtained diffusion parameters remain uncertain due to lack of specificity. In this work, we address this problem by comparing diffusion parameters of a recently introduced model for water diffusion in brain matter to light microscopy and quantitative electron microscopy. Specifically, we compare diffusion model predictions of neurite density in rats to optical myelin staining intensity and stereological estimation of neurite volume fraction using electron microscopy. We find that the diffusion model describes data better and that its parameters show stronger correlation with optical and electron microscopy, and thus reflect myelinated neurite density better than the more frequently used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and cumulant expansion methods. Furthermore, the estimated neurite orientations capture dendritic architecture more faithfully than DTI diffusion ellipsoids.
AB - Due to its unique sensitivity to tissue microstructure, diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has found many applications in clinical and fundamental science. With few exceptions, a more precise correspondence between physiological or biophysical properties and the obtained diffusion parameters remain uncertain due to lack of specificity. In this work, we address this problem by comparing diffusion parameters of a recently introduced model for water diffusion in brain matter to light microscopy and quantitative electron microscopy. Specifically, we compare diffusion model predictions of neurite density in rats to optical myelin staining intensity and stereological estimation of neurite volume fraction using electron microscopy. We find that the diffusion model describes data better and that its parameters show stronger correlation with optical and electron microscopy, and thus reflect myelinated neurite density better than the more frequently used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and cumulant expansion methods. Furthermore, the estimated neurite orientations capture dendritic architecture more faithfully than DTI diffusion ellipsoids.
KW - Diffusion
KW - Histology
KW - Neurite density
KW - Stereology
KW - Ultra high-field MRI
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=70349968207&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.08.053
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.08.053
M3 - Article
C2 - 19732836
AN - SCOPUS:70349968207
SN - 1053-8119
VL - 49
SP - 205
EP - 216
JO - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
IS - 1
ER -