Volume Reduction of Subcortical Grey Matter After Death

Aikaterini Kotrotsou¹, Robert J. Dawe¹, Julie A. Schneider², David A. Bennett², Konstantinos Arfanakis^1,2

An increasing number of studies combine results of postmortem MR volumetry on cadaveric human brains with histological or clinical data. However, the changes that occur in the volume of different brain structures after death have not been thoroughly investigated. The purpose of this work was to determine the relationship between the volume of sub-cortical grey matter structures measured with MR volumetry in-vivo and postmortem. A statistically significant linear relationship was demonstrated between the normalized postmortem and in-vivo volumes of subcortical grey matter structures. Also, the volume of subcortical grey matter structures was lower on average postmortem than in-vivo.