BrainMap: Susie Y. Huang, MD PhD

Characterizing tissue microstructure in the living human brain using 300 mT/m gradients

Diffusion MRI has the capacity to provide non-invasive quantification of metrics that relate directly to tissue microstructure but requires models more specific than diffusion tensor imaging. This presentation will describe our efforts to develop advanced diffusion MRI techniques that offer in vivo histology of the human brain with micron-level resolution of axonal and neuronal structure. This work leverages recent technological advances in MRI hardware for the Human Connectome Project, which have enabled the engineering of a 3T human MRI scanner equipped with 300 mT/m gradients, more than seven times stronger than those available on conventional MR scanners. In addition to improving structural connectivity studies, the Connectome scanner allows the exploration of the microscopic diffusion environment though methods such as AxCaliber, which have thus far mainly been applied in small animals and ex vivo samples. I will discuss the development of the TractCaliber and Linear Multi-scale Modeling methods for characterizing tissue microstructure in the living human brain. I will then present applications of these methods to assessing axonal damage in multiple sclerosis and defining tumor extent in primary glial neoplasms.