脳画像は6400万倍も鮮明になった(Brain Images Just Got 64 Million Times Sharper)

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2023-04-17 デューク大学(Duke)

脳画像は6400万倍も鮮明になった(Brain Images Just Got 64 Million Times Sharper)
This video shows horizontal ‘slices’ of the circuitry data moving up and down across the brain.

デューク大学の研究者らが、MRI技術を改良し、マウスの脳の画像を過去最高の解像度で撮影した。1つのピクセル(体積要素)が5マイクロメートルしかないため、これまでよりもさらに細かい神経細胞の接続を見ることができるようになり、高齢化、食事、アルツハイマー病などの脳の変化を理解する上で、新しい手法を提供するとされる。マウスの脳を用いたことで、ヒトへの応用はまだ不明だが、MRI技術の改良が、疾患研究に新たな道を開くことが期待される。

<関連情報>

マウス全脳の磁気共鳴と光シート顕微鏡法の融合 Merged magnetic resonance and light sheet microscopy of the whole mouse brain

G. Allan Johnson, Yuqi Tian, David G. Ashbrook, Gary P. Cofer, James J. Cook, James C. Gee, Adam Hall, Kathryn Hornburg, Yi Qi, Fang-Cheng Yeh, Nian Wang, Leonard E. White and Robert W. Williams
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences  Published:April 17, 2023
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2218617120

Significance

We demonstrate the highest-resolution MR images ever obtained of the mouse brain. The diffusion tensor images (DTI) @ 15 μm spatial resolution are 1,000 times the resolution of most preclinical rodent DTI/MRI. Superresolution track density images are 27,000 times that of typical preclinical DTI/MRI. High angular resolution yielded the most detailed MR connectivity maps ever generated. High-performance computing pipelines merged the DTI with light sheet microscopy of the same specimen, providing a comprehensive picture of cells and circuits. The methods have been used to demonstrate how strain differences result in differential changes in connectivity with age. We believe the methods will have broad applicability in the study of neurodegenerative diseases.

Abstract

We have developed workflows to align 3D magnetic resonance histology (MRH) of the mouse brain with light sheet microscopy (LSM) and 3D delineations of the same specimen. We start with MRH of the brain in the skull with gradient echo and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) at 15 μm isotropic resolution which is ~ 1,000 times higher than that of most preclinical MRI. Connectomes are generated with superresolution tract density images of ~5 μm. Brains are cleared, stained for selected proteins, and imaged by LSM at 1.8 μm/pixel. LSM data are registered into the reference MRH space with labels derived from the ABA common coordinate framework. The result is a high-dimensional integrated volume with registration (HiDiver) with alignment precision better than 50 µm. Throughput is sufficiently high that HiDiver is being used in quantitative studies of the impact of gene variants and aging on mouse brain cytoarchitecture and connectomics.

医療・健康
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