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Updated: Feb 23, 2026
In vivo Imaging of Optic Nerve Fiber Integrity by Contrast-Enhanced MRI in Mice
Published on: July 22, 2014
Magnetic resonance imaging study of eye congenital birth defects in mouse model
Jing-Huei Lee1, Zachary Tucker1, Maureen Mongan2
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Cincinnati, OH.
Purpose:
Embryonic eyelid closure is a well-documented morphogenetic episode in mammalian eye development. Detection of eyelid closure defect in humans is a major challenge because eyelid closure and reopen occur entirely in utero. As a consequence, congenital eye defects that are associated with failure of embryonic eyelid closure remain unknown. To fill the gap, we developed a mouse model of defective eyelid closure. This preliminary work demonstrates that the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approach can be used for the detection of extraocular muscle abnormalities in the mouse model.
Methods:
Mice with either normal (Map3k1 ) or defective (Map3k1 ) embryonic eyelid closure were used in this study. Images of the extraocular muscles were obtained with a 9.4 T high resolution microimaging MRI system. The extraocular muscles were identified, segmented, and measured in each imaging slice using an in-house program.
Results:
In agreement with histological findings, the imaging data show that mice with defective embryonic eyelid closure develop less extraocular muscle than normal mice. In addition, the size of the eyeballs was noticeably reduced in mice with defective embryonic eyelid closure.
Conclusions:
We demonstrated that MRI can potentially be used for the study of extraocular muscle in the mouse model of the eye open-at-birth defect, despite the lack of specificity of muscle group provided by the current imaging resolution.
