TY - JOUR

T1 - Distribution of collateral fibers in the monkey cervical spinal cord detected with diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging

AU - Lundell, Henrik

AU - Nielsen, Jens Bo

AU - Ptito, Maurice

AU - Dyrby, Tim B.

N1 - CURIS 2011 5200 029

PY - 2011

Y1 - 2011

N2 - Diffusion anisotropy monitored with diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DWMRI) is a sensitive marker to monitor developmental or pathological microstructural changes in spinal cord. The white matter is often treated as a unidirectional axonal bundle but collateral fibers branching off the main spinal pathways contradicts this assumption and affects the diffusion anisotropy. It is the aim of this study to investigate to what extent collateral fibers are apparent in diffusion tensor data and if collaterals can be detected as individual fiber directions using crossing fiber detection techniques. We calculate the diffusion tensor and the persistent angular structure (PAS), a multi-fiber reconstruction technique, from high quality post mortem data of a perfusion-fixed vervet monkey cervical spinal cord sample and simulated crossing fiber data. Our results show that (i) cylindrical geometry in the white matter of the spinal cord is an invalid assumption due to collateral fibers. We also demonstrate that (ii) collateral fibers can be resolved as distinct peaks in the water diffusion propagator in white matter using multi-fiber models. Finally, we show that (iii) crossing fibers are mainly located laterally and increase towards the cervical enlargement.

AB - Diffusion anisotropy monitored with diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DWMRI) is a sensitive marker to monitor developmental or pathological microstructural changes in spinal cord. The white matter is often treated as a unidirectional axonal bundle but collateral fibers branching off the main spinal pathways contradicts this assumption and affects the diffusion anisotropy. It is the aim of this study to investigate to what extent collateral fibers are apparent in diffusion tensor data and if collaterals can be detected as individual fiber directions using crossing fiber detection techniques. We calculate the diffusion tensor and the persistent angular structure (PAS), a multi-fiber reconstruction technique, from high quality post mortem data of a perfusion-fixed vervet monkey cervical spinal cord sample and simulated crossing fiber data. Our results show that (i) cylindrical geometry in the white matter of the spinal cord is an invalid assumption due to collateral fibers. We also demonstrate that (ii) collateral fibers can be resolved as distinct peaks in the water diffusion propagator in white matter using multi-fiber models. Finally, we show that (iii) crossing fibers are mainly located laterally and increase towards the cervical enlargement.

U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.02.043

DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.02.043

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 21352926

VL - 56

SP - 923

EP - 929

JO - NeuroImage

JF - NeuroImage

SN - 1053-8119

IS - 3

ER -