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Abstract #0734

Study the Cerebral Wall of the Fetal Brain with DTI and Histology

Hao Huang1, Linda J. Richards2, Paul Yarowsky3, Susumu Mori4

1Advanced Imaging Research Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States; 2Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Australia; 3Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, United States; 4Department of Radiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States


The cerebral wall of the fetal brain contains multiple layers and undergoes active structural changes during fetal development. DTI imaging can clearly identify three layers in the cerebral wall, which are cortical plate, subplate and inner layer. In this study, we qualitatively and quantitatively characterized the inner layer with both DTI and histology and found that radial structure, rather than the tangential structure of fetal white matter, is dominant in the inner layer during second trimester. Fractional anisotropy values in the inner layer are higher than those in the suplate but lower than those in the cortical plate.