Evan Calabrese1,
Alexandra Badea2, G. Allan Johnson1, 2
1Biomedical
Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States; 2Radiology,
Duke University, Durham, NC, United States
The rat is a powerful model system for studying neurodevelopment and neurotoxicology. However, the complex spatiotemporal changes that occur during rat neurodevelopment remain to be elucidated. This work establishes the first diffusion tensor magnetic resonance histology (DT-MRH) atlas of the developing rat brain. The atlas establishes a timeline of normal morphometric and diffusion tensor changes throughout neurodevelopment and represents a quantitative database of rat neurodevelopment for characterizing rat models of human neurologic disease. We demonstrate the use of the atlas as a database for quantitative morphometry and DTI tissue microstructural metrics throughout normal postnatal neurodevelopment.