Abstract #0943

Do Regional Cerebral Blood Volume (RCBV) Effects Partially Explain Short-Termed Changes of Voxel-Based Morphometry (VBM)?

Dirk Ernst Cleppien¹,², Lei Zheng³, Claudia Falfan-Melgoza¹, Barbara Vollmayr²,⁴, Gabriele Ende⁵, Wolfgang Weber-Fahr¹,⁵, Alexander Sartorius,¹²

¹RG Translational Imaging, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim/ Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany; ²Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim/ Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany; ³Experimental Radiation Oncology, University Medical Center Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany; ⁴Research Group Animal Models in Psychiatry, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim/ Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany; ⁵NeuroImaging, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim/ Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany

One idea to measure possible neuroplastic effects of the brain is magnetic resonance imaging by using techniques like voxel-based morphometry (VBM). One possible drawback could be sensitivity to reversible changes of the brain structure as measurable by regional cerebral blood volume (rCBV). Therefore, our hypothesis was that rCBV partially explains the variance of VBM changes, which we tested by analyzing region-based correlations between rCBV and VBM in rat brain. For large brain regions rCBV correlates significantly with gray matter probability maps, whereas white matter probability maps correlate negatively with rCBV.