The Effect of Onset Age of Visual Deprivation on Visual Cortex Surface Area Across-Species.

Blindness early in life induces permanent alterations in brain anatomy, including reduced surface area of primary visual cortex (V1). Bilateral enucleation early in development causes greater reductions in primary visual cortex surface area than at later times. However, the time at which cortical surface area expansion is no longer sensitive to enucleation is not clearly established, despite being an important milestone for cortical development. Using histological and MRI techniques, we investigated how reductions in the surface area of V1 depends on the timing of blindness onset in rats, ferrets and humans. To compare data across species, we translated ages of all species to a common neuro-developmental event-time (ET) scale. Consistently, blindness during early cortical expansion induced large (~40%) reductions in V1 surface area, in rats and ferrets, while blindness occurring later had diminishing effects. Longitudinal measurements on ferrets confirmed that early enucleation disrupted cortical expansion, rather than inducing enhanced pruning. We modeled the ET associated with the conclusion of the effect of blindness on surface area at maturity (ETc), relative to the normal conclusion of visual cortex surface area expansion, (ETdev). A final analysis combining our data with extant published data confirmed that ETc occurred well before ETdev.

White matter lesions defined by diffusion tensor imaging in older adults.

OBJECTIVE: The cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying magnetic resonance imaging-defined white matter (WM) changes associated with age-related cognitive decline remain poorly defined. We tested the hypothesis that WM lesions in older adults, defined by diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), arise in the setting of vascular brain injury (VBI) and are characterized by increased free radical injury and aberrant oligodendrocyte lineage (OL) cell response to injury. METHODS: We undertook a multimodal analysis of prefrontal cortex (PFC) WM from 25 autopsies derived from a population-based cohort where VBI and Alzheimer disease (AD) frequently coincide. Ex vivo high field strength DTI measurements of fractional anisotropy (FA), apparent diffusion coefficient, and axial and radial (D(⊥) ) diffusivity were measured at high magnetic field strength (11.7T) and analyzed relative to quantitative in vivo biomarkers of free radical injury, an OL-specific marker Olig2, and histologic evaluation of hyaluronan (HA), an inhibitor of OL maturation. RESULTS: Coincident AD and VBI showed significant association with lower FA and a robust relationship between decreasing FA and increasing D(⊥) . Free radical injury to docosahexaenoate and adrenate in PFC WM was significantly elevated in cases with VBI independent of AD, and was inversely correlated with FA. Similarly, increased density of Olig2-immunoreactive cells in PFC WM was significantly associated with VBI independent of AD and colocalized with regions enriched in HA. INTERPRETATION: DTI-defined PFC WM lesions in older individuals are characterized by free radical injury to myelin and neuroaxonal elements that coincides with pronounced expansion of the pool of OL cells in HA-rich regions.

Regional patterns of cerebral cortical differentiation determined by diffusion tensor MRI.

The morphology of axonal and dendritic arbors in the immature cerebral cortex influences the degree of anisotropy in water diffusion. This enables cortical maturation to be monitored by the noninvasive technique of diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI). Herein, we utilized DTI of postmortem ferret brain to quantify regional and temporal patterns in cortical maturation. We found that diffusion anisotropy within the isocortex decreases over the first month of life, coinciding closely in time with expansion of axonal and dendritic cellular processes of pyramidal neurons. Regional patterns consist of differences between allocortex and isocortex, a regional anisotropy gradient that closely parallels the transverse neurogenetic gradient, and differences between primary and nonprimary isocortical areas. By combining the temporal and regional factors, the isocortical developmental gradient magnitude corresponds to a 5-day difference in maturity between relatively developed rostral/caudal isocortex at the gradient source and less mature isocortex at the occipital pole. Additionally, the developmental trajectory of primary areas precedes nonprimary areas by 2.7 days. These quantitative estimates coincide with previous histological studies of ferret development. Similarities in cerebral cortical diffusion anisotropy observed between ferret and other species suggest the framework developed here is of general potential relevance.

Multisite concordance of apparent diffusion coefficient measurements across the NCI Quantitative Imaging Network.

Diffusion weighted MRI has become ubiquitous in many areas of medicine, including cancer diagnosis and treatment response monitoring. Reproducibility of diffusion metrics is essential for their acceptance as quantitative biomarkers in these areas. We examined the variability in the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) obtained from both postprocessing software implementations utilized by the NCI Quantitative Imaging Network and online scan time-generated ADC maps. Phantom and in vivo breast studies were evaluated for two ([Formula: see text]) and four ([Formula: see text]) [Formula: see text]-value diffusion metrics. Concordance of the majority of implementations was excellent for both phantom ADC measures and in vivo [Formula: see text], with relative biases [Formula: see text] ([Formula: see text]) and [Formula: see text] (phantom [Formula: see text]) but with higher deviations in ADC at the lowest phantom ADC values. In vivo [Formula: see text] concordance was good, with typical biases of [Formula: see text] to 3% but higher for online maps. Multiple b-value ADC implementations were separated into two groups determined by the fitting algorithm. Intergroup mean ADC differences ranged from negligible for phantom data to 2.8% for [Formula: see text] in vivo data. Some higher deviations were found for individual implementations and online parametric maps. Despite generally good concordance, implementation biases in ADC measures are sometimes significant and may be large enough to be of concern in multisite studies.

Diffusion tensor imaging detects early cerebral cortex abnormalities in neuronal architecture induced by bilateral neonatal enucleation: an experimental model in the ferret.

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a technique that non-invasively provides quantitative measures of water translational diffusion, including fractional anisotropy (FA), that are sensitive to the shape and orientation of cellular elements, such as axons, dendrites and cell somas. For several neurodevelopmental disorders, histopathological investigations have identified abnormalities in the architecture of pyramidal neurons at early stages of cerebral cortex development. To assess the potential capability of DTI to detect neuromorphological abnormalities within the developing cerebral cortex, we compare changes in cortical FA with changes in neuronal architecture and connectivity induced by bilateral enucleation at postnatal day 7 (BEP7) in ferrets. We show here that the visual callosal pattern in BEP7 ferrets is more irregular and occupies a significantly greater cortical area compared to controls at adulthood. To determine whether development of the cerebral cortex is altered in BEP7 ferrets in a manner detectable by DTI, cortical FA was compared in control and BEP7 animals on postnatal day 31. Visual cortex, but not rostrally adjacent non-visual cortex, exhibits higher FA than control animals, consistent with BEP7 animals possessing axonal and dendritic arbors of reduced complexity than age-matched controls. Subsequent to DTI, Golgi-staining and analysis methods were used to identify regions, restricted to visual areas, in which the orientation distribution of neuronal processes is significantly more concentrated than in control ferrets. Together, these findings suggest that DTI can be of utility for detecting abnormalities associated with neurodevelopmental disorders at early stages of cerebral cortical development, and that the neonatally enucleated ferret is a useful animal model system for systematically assessing the potential of this new diagnostic strategy.