Mapping the Living Mouse Brain Neural Architecture: Strain Specific Patterns of the Brain Connectional Anatomy

Laura-Adela Harsan¹, Marco Reisert¹, Annette Merkle¹, Jrgen Hennig¹, Dominik von Elverfeldt¹

In the present study we probe at microscopic level, the ensemble of anatomical neurocircuity of the living mouse brain, using diffusion fiber tracking, comparatively in BALB/cJ and C57Bl6/N mice. Exquisite brain anatomical details of the mouse brain neural architecture were revealed by combining the use of Cryoprobe technology for MRI data acquisition and a new global fiber tracking algorithm for post-processing. We depicted inter- and intra-strain variations in the general wiring scheme of the mouse brain. As a prominent feature, BALB/cJ mice show great within-strain variations in the callosal interhemispheric connectivity.