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Abstract #3636

Axon-mimicking hydrophilic fibre phantoms for diffusion MRI

Fenglei Zhou1,2, Amy McDowell3, Kiran Seunarine3, Matt G. Hall3,4, Damien J. McHugh1, Zhanxiong Li5, Chris Clark3, Penny L Hubbard Cristinacce1, and Geoff J. M. Parker1,6

1Quantitative Biomedical Imaging Laboratory, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom, 2School of Materials, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom, 3Developmental Imaging and Biophysics, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London, United Kingdom, 4National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, London, United Kingdom, 5College of Textile and Clothing Engineering, Soochow University, Suzhou, China, 6Bioxydyn Limited, Manchester, United Kingdom

We report the development of an axon-mimicking phantom composed of hydrophilic hollow microfibres, and evaluate its potential for validating clinical diffusion MRI. Microfibers were fabricated by the co-electrospinning (co-ES) of polycaprolactone (PCL)-polysiloxane-based surfactant (PSi) mixture as shell and polyethylene oxide (PEO) as core, and characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Three material samples were constructed and included in the phantom within a water bath. SEM images reveal that PCL-PSi fibres in the samples were uniaxially aligned and hollow, with a similar distribution of pore sizes to axons in vivo. MR measurement shows similar anisotropic diffusion behaviour in each sample.

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