MEMRI for the morphological and functional study of mouse brain: application to the Down syndrome
Résumé
In the transgenic research era, the understanding of the functional consequences of the genes deletions or mutations in order to investigate the origin of human transgenic disease, requires the development of non invasive study methods on murine models. Our aim is to develop new Down syndrome models and a 3D reconstruction software using MEMRI at 9.4T. To improve contrast and spatial resolution at high magnetic field, the Mn2+ contrast agent shows powerful paramagnetic properties leading to a significant increase of MRI signal [1]. Mn2+ is a unique marker for neuroarchitecture, neuronal connections and functions therefore particularly interesting for neuropathological studies in vivo. In order to investigate the morphological and structural consequences on the central nervous system development in new mice models of human chromosome 21 aneuploïdies, we used MEMRI and. we also developed a powerful tool in order to perform an automatic segmentation and 3D reconstruction of three brain structures.