A longitudinal microstructural MRI dataset in healthy C57Bl/6 mice at 9.4 Tesla

Area of Science:

• Neuroimaging
• Preclinical Research
• Mouse Models

Background:

• Multimodal microstructural MRI enhances sensitivity to brain changes in disease and injury models.
• Understanding healthy brain microstructural dynamics is crucial for interpreting disease-related alterations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a comprehensive in vivo longitudinal dataset of microstructural changes in the healthy mouse brain.
• To provide a valuable resource for developing and validating advanced neuroimaging analysis techniques.

Main Methods:

• Acquisition of multimodal microstructural MRI data, including T2-weighted imaging, magnetization transfer ratio, saturation imaging, and advanced quantitative diffusion MRI (dMRI).
• Utilized oscillating gradient spin echo (OGSE) dMRI for enhanced sensitivity to small spatial scales.
• Employed microscopic anisotropy (μA) dMRI to differentiate fiber orientation dispersion from microstructural changes.

Main Results:

• A shared dataset comprising unprocessed and preprocessed data, along with scalar maps of quantitative MRI metrics.
• The dataset includes in vivo longitudinal data and a subset of ex vivo data for comprehensive analysis.
• Demonstrated advanced dMRI techniques for detailed microstructural characterization.

Conclusions:

• The shared dataset is a valuable resource for the microstructural MRI field.
• Facilitates the development and testing of biophysical models and computational neuroimaging pipelines.
• Aids in the advancement of methods for modeling temporal brain dynamics and improving registration/preprocessing techniques.