Miniature pig model of human adolescent brain white matter development.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Neuroscience research in brain development and disorders can benefit from an in vivo animal model that portrays normal white matter (WM) development trajectories and has a sufficiently large cerebrum for imaging with human MRI scanners and protocols.

New method

Twelve three-month-old Sinclair™ miniature pigs (Sus scrofa domestica) were longitudinally evaluated during adolescent development using advanced diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) focused on cerebral WM. Animals had three MRI scans every 23.95 ± 3.73 days using a 3-T scanner. The DWI imaging protocol closely modeled advanced human structural protocols and consisted of fifteen b-shells (b = 0-3500 s/mm²) with 32-directions/shell. DWI data were analyzed using diffusion kurtosis and bi-exponential mo

SUBMITTER: Ryan MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5817010 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature