Past events: Aviv Mezer. Quantitative MRI for human white matter: What we can add to diffusion imaging?

What: Quantitative MRI for human white matter: What we can add to diffusion imaging?

Where: BCBL Auditorium

Who: Aviv Mezer, Ph.D., Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

When: 12:30 PM

Understanding human brain structure organization in health, disease and development is one of the great challenges for neuroscience. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the most valuable technique for noninvasive in-vivo imaging of the human brain. However, the use of MRI is currently limited, due to the lack of a theory that links the specific biological structures to the measured signal. In my presentation, I will describe a quantitative- MRI (qMRI) method, using proton density (PD) and T1, which enables measurement of the biophysical properties of human brain tissue, such as the lipid and macromolecular tissue volume and the macromolecular physicochemical environment. I will discuss how such measurements quantities can be used for 1) identifying white-matter pathways, 2) testing hypotheses of the principles underlying lifespan changes in white-matter structure, and 3) measuring arcuate fasciculus laterality. Quantitative measurements and models of the living human brain offer a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between cognitive, systems and cellular neuroscience. Such understanding of how different tissue types develop and degenerate could be crucial to the early diagnosis and treatment of developmental and degenerative disorders.