Jeffrey Moses Njus1, James R. Pollaro1, Mathew T. Snodgrass1, Vincent B. Warren2, Ethan Muldoon1, John Cunneen1, Steven G. Kohama2, William D. Rooney1
1Advanced Imaging Research Center, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA; 2Oregon National Primate Research Center, Beaverton, OR, USA
MRI T1 mapping offers a precise way to characterize brain tissue in vivo and has potential for fast objective evaluation of physical and morphological properties. The purpose of this study was to evaluate age-related changes in the non-human primate (NHP) brain from infant to middle age. To accomplish this goal, full brain 1H2O T1 relaxographic data sets were collected from 53 healthy Japanese macaques (21M, 31F, 1H) at 3 T. T1 histograms were constructed and analyzed to determine the normalized volume fractions of white matter (WM), gray matter (GM), CSF tissue water, and average T1 values for WM and GM. WM and GM T1 values decreased significantly with age in the developing NHP brain.
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