Considerations and recommendations from the ISMRM Diffusion Study Group for preclinical diffusion MRI: Part 2 -- Ex vivo imaging: added value and acquisition
Abstract
The value of preclinical diffusion MRI (dMRI) is substantial. While dMRI enables in vivo non-invasive characterization of tissue, ex vivo dMRI is increasingly used to probe tissue microstructure and brain connectivity. Ex vivo dMRI has several experimental advantages including higher signal-to-noise ratio and spatial resolution compared to in vivo studies, and enabling more advanced diffusion contrasts. Another major advantage of ex vivo dMRI is the direct comparison with histological data as a methodological validation. However, there are a number of considerations that must be made when performing ex vivo experiments. The steps from tissue preparation, image acquisition and processing, and interpretation of results are complex, with decisions that not only differ dramatically from in vivo imaging of small animals, but ultimately affect what questions can be answered using the data. This work represents "Part 2" of a 3-part series of recommendations and considerations for preclinical dMRI. We describe best practices for dMRI of ex vivo tissue, with a focus on the value that ex vivo imaging adds to the field of dMRI and considerations in ex vivo image acquisition. We give general considerations and foundational knowledge that must be considered when designing experiments. We describe differences in specimens and models and discuss why some may be more or less appropriate for different studies. We then give guidelines for ex vivo protocols, including tissue fixation, sample preparation, and MR scanning. In each section, we attempt to provide guidelines and recommendations, but also highlight areas for which no guidelines exist (and why), and where future work should lie. An overarching goal herein is to enhance the rigor and reproducibility of ex vivo dMRI acquisitions and analyses, and thereby advance biomedical knowledge.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2209.13371,
title = {Considerations and recommendations from the ISMRM Diffusion Study Group for preclinical diffusion MRI: Part 2 -- Ex vivo imaging: added value and acquisition},
author = {Kurt G Schilling and Francesco Grussu and Andrada Ianus and Brian Hansen and Amy FD Howard and Rachel L C Barrett and Manisha Aggarwal and Stijn Michielse and Fatima Nasrallah and Warda Syeda and Nian Wang and Jelle Veraart and Alard Roebroeck and Andrew F Bagdasarian and Cornelius Eichner and Farshid Sepehrband and Jan Zimmermann and Lucas Soustelle and Christien Bowman and Benjamin C Tendler and Andreea Hertanu and Ben Jeurissen and Lucio Frydman and Yohan van de Looij and David Hike and Jeff F Dunn and Karla Miller and Bennett A Landman and Noam Shemesh and Adam Anderson and Emilie McKinnon and Shawna Farquharson and Flavio Dell' Acqua and Carlo Pierpaoli and Ivana Drobnjak and Alexander Leemans and Kevin D Harkins and Maxime Descoteaux and Duan Xu and Hao Huang and Mathieu D Santin and Samuel C. Grant and Andre Obenaus and Gene S Kim and Dan Wu and Denis Le Bihan and Stephen J Blackband and Luisa Ciobanu and Els Fieremans and Ruiliang Bai and Trygve Leergaard and Jiangyang Zhang and Tim B Dyrby and G Allan Johnson and Julien Cohen-Adad and Matthew D Budde and Ileana O Jelescu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.13371},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
Part 2 of 3 in "Considerations and recommendations for preclinical diffusion MRI"