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Updated: Apr 23, 2026
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A Scanning Electron Microscopy-Compatible Optical Imaging Method for Mesoscopic All-Cell Brain Mapping
Published on: February 20, 2026
398
Multi-contrast dual-resolution UTE for myelin fraction mapping and structural imaging.
Nan Yin1, Alexander Rau2, Marco Reisert3
1Division of Medical Physics, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, University Medical Center Freiburg, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany. nan.yin@uniklinik-freiburg.de.
Magma (New York, N.Y.)
|April 21, 2026
Summary
A new multi-contrast dual-resolution 3D-UTE sequence accurately estimates cerebral myelin fraction (MF) in vivo. This advanced MRI technique shows strong correlation with histology and potential for diagnosing neurodegenerative diseases.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Imaging
- Neuroscience
- Radiology
Background:
- Directly imaging myelin in vivo is challenging due to its ultrashort T2* relaxation time.
- Accurate myelin quantification is crucial for understanding and diagnosing neurological disorders.
Purpose of the Study:
- Introduce and evaluate a novel multi-contrast, dual-resolution 3D-UTE sequence for in vivo cerebral myelin fraction (MF) estimation.
- Benchmark the novel multi-UTE sequence against electron microscopy (EM)-based myelin volume fraction measurements.
Main Methods:
- Developed a multi-UTE sequence combining high-resolution UTE with interleaved multi-echo UTE acquisitions.
- Acquired simultaneous quantitative, water-excited, high-resolution T1-weighted structural images.
- Calculated MF maps from multi-UTE data and compared them with ex vivo sheep brains, healthy volunteers, and MS patients, alongside EM histology.
Main Results:
- The multi-UTE sequence enabled simultaneous acquisition of quantitative and structural images in 20 minutes.
- In vivo MF values in healthy volunteers aligned with existing literature.
- MF estimated by multi-UTE demonstrated a high correlation with EM histology (R² = 0.86) across diverse brain regions.
Conclusions:
- The multi-UTE sequence exhibited the highest correlation with EM histology for myelin quantification.
- MF maps derived from multi-UTE overlapped with lesions in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients.
- Multi-UTE offers potential for complementary insights into myelin quantification in neurodegenerative and inflammatory diseases.
