Robert J. Dawe1, Julie A. Schneider2,
David A. Bennett2, Konstantinos Arfanakis1,2
1Department of Biomedical
Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, United States; 2Rush
Alzheimer's Disease Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL,
United States
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of ex vivo human brain specimens offers a unique opportunity for histopathologic verification of in vivo DTI findings. However, DTI data acquired ex vivo may be contaminated by postmortem changes to the tissues MR properties. In this work, human brain hemispheres were imaged with DTI over time up to one month postmortem. Mean diffusivity underwent a drastic reduction within one day postmortem. Postmortem fractional anisotropy was initially similar to antemortem values, but decreased substantially within one week postmortem.
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