Seeking the Amygdala: Novel Use of Diffusion Tensor Imaging to Delineate the Basolateral Amygdala.

ABSTRACT: The amygdaloid complex, including the basolateral nucleus (BLA), contributes crucially to emotional and cognitive brain functions, and is a major target of research in both humans and rodents. However, delineating structural amygdala plasticity in both normal and disease-related contexts using neuroimaging has been hampered by the difficulty of unequivocally identifying the boundaries of the BLA. This challenge is a result of the poor contrast between BLA and the surrounding gray matter, including other amygdala nuclei. Here, we describe a novel diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) approach to enhance contrast, enabling the optimal identification of BLA in the rodent brain from magnetic resonance (MR) images. We employed this methodology together with a slice-shifting approach to accurately meas

SUBMITTER: Obenaus A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9953214 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature