Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Magnetic resonance imaging techniques have literally revolutionized neuroimaging with an unprecedented ability to explore tissue structure and function.
Over the last three decades, the sensitivity and array of imaging techniques available have improved providing ever finer structural information and more sensitive functional techniques. Among these methods, diffusion imaging techniques have facilitated the generation of fiber-tract maps of the brain enabling an examination of issues related to brain structure and neural connectivity.
Despite the potential utility of the techniques described, validation has not yet been achieved on biological samples. Recently, using newly developed surface microcoils on small samples at high magnetic fields, we demonstrated the ability of MR microscopy to image individual neurons in mammalian brain tissue. Thus it becomes possible to delineate fiber structure in tissues at the cellular level.
These methods provide a way to directly validate fiber tracking techniques with histology so that contemporary tracking techniques may be compared and refined using the microstructural details of a biological template as a ground truth.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging MRI has matured over the last three decades into a leading diagnostic imaging technique, and is now the modality of choice for many studies. This is especially true for neurological applications as MRI offers a non-invasive means of observing structures of the central nervous system encased in the skull and spinal column.
