Abstract #3392

Tsatskis S, Carroll J, Lerch J, Hayden M, Henkelman R

Magnetic resonance imaging was used to detect neuroanatomical differences between eight-month-old fixed Huntington Disease (HD) mouse model brains and their wild-type littermates. A four-channel 7.0-T MR scanner with a 6-cm inner bore diameter gradient set was used to acquire anatomical images of brains within skulls. Significant differences in deformation magnitudes were found in the bilateral striatum, the right cerebral cortex, and isolated regions of the thalamus. These results suggest that HD-related neurodegeneration can be detected earlier than initially believed, and suggest that MR-based measures can provide essential information about neuroanatomical integrity for clinical trials in HD mouse models.