Microanatomy of the Primate Mouse Lemur Brain at 7T After Passive Staining

Anne Bertrand^1,2, Alexandra Petiet^1,3, Sbastien Mriaux², Christopher J. Wiggins², Audrey Kraska^1,2, Olne Dorieux^1,2, Fabienne Aujard⁴, Marc Dhenain^1,2

Mouse lemurs provide a promising primate model of Alzheimer's disease. We performed a morphological micro-MRI ex vivo study on 6 mouse lemur formalin-fixed brains using gadolinium passive staining (PS). Quantitative analysis showed that PS increased the contrast-to noise ratio (CNR) between grey and white matter, even in very small white matter tracts. Qualitative analysis showed that structures as small as the dentate gyrus and olfactory bulb cell layers could be resolved on a 3D FLASH sequence. Our results should be useful in preclinical studies using this primate model of AD.