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Abstract #1701

Characterization of White Matter Maturation in Cats: Diffusion Spectrum Imaging Tractography

Qin Chen1,2, Emi Takahashi3, Guangping Dai1, Ellen Grant, 1,3

1Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, MA, United States; 2Department of Neurology, West China Hospital of Sichuan Univeristy, Chengdu, Sichuan, China; 3Divison of Newborn Medicine, Department of Medicine and Department of Radiology, Childrens Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States


We have shown that at postnatal day (P) 35 kittens, the degrees of myelination varied in white matters in different brain areas (Takahashi et al., 2009). Our purpose of current study was to quantify the FA and ADC values on different fiber tracts in this specific developmental phase of juvenile kitten to characterize regional difference in degrees of maturation, and to compare these values between P35 (pediatric). Using high-resolution diffusion spectrum imaging (DSI) tractography, we successfully imaged the 3-dimensional structure of the cortical and subcortical pathways in P35 cats.

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