Abstract #2578

Myelin Density Measurement by ZTE in the D2O-Exchanged Spinal Cord is Unaffected by Tissue Fixation

Alan C Seifert^1,2,3, Marco Hefti⁴, Mary Fowkes⁴, and Junqian Xu^1,2,3,5

¹Translational and Molecular Imaging Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, United States, ²Department of Radiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, United States, ³Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, United States, ⁴Department of Pathology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, United States, ⁵Department of Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, United States

Zero echo time imaging (ZTE) of deuterium oxide (D₂O)-exchanged unfixed white matter is a proven method for measurement of myelin density. In this work, we perform D₂O-exchanged ZTE measurements on human spinal cord tissue before and after formalin fixation to assess whether fixation, which cross-links proteins, impacts the measured myelin density. A segment of human spinal cord was obtained at autopsy, subjected to D₂O-exchanged ZTE myelin density measurement, chemically fixed using formalin, and re-measured. Signal intensity was 31.36%, normalized to a reference, before fixation, and 31.44% after fixation. These similar measurements support this method’s accuracy in fixed tissue.

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