Tuesday August 21st at 2 o'clock in the Pavillion 7 meeting room, Gisela Hagberg from MPI Tübingen gives a talk entitled

"Visualizing the microstructure of the superior colliculus :  in vivo MRI at 9.4T and validation by and polarized light microscopy of ex vivo brainstem samples". 
All are welcome. 

Abstract: We explored the possibility to observe the anatomical details of the superior colliculus (SC) and the human midbrain by in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 9.4T. The high signal-to-noise ratio allowed the acquisition of high resolution, multi-modal images with voxel sizes ranging between 176x132x600µm and 800µm. Quantitative mapping of the longitudinal relaxation rate R1, the effective transverse relaxation rate R2*, and the magnetic susceptibility QSM yielded consistent results across 14 healthy volunteers. Depth profiles through the SC layers towards the red nucleus were evaluated at different levels of the SC along the rostro-caudal axis and  revealed MR contrast concordant with previous post mortem histology studies of the cyto- and myeloarchitecture of the SC. Our results suggest that the myelinated fibers in the superficial optic layer (layer III) and tbe iron-rich intermediate gray layer (IV) composed of multipolar neurons can be observed in vivo at 9.4T. Validation of these observation by MRI and polarized light microscopy of ex vivo samples are under way.