Frontiers & Challenges in Rodent Brain Imaging
Member-Initiated Symposium

ORGANIZERS: Elaine Bearer

Monday, 13 May 2019

Session Number: MIS-06

Overview
MR imaging of rodent brains provides an approach to explore neurobiological processes also occurring in human brains. Frontiers in rodent brain imaging include development of metabolic contrast agents to detect neural activity and new quantitative approaches to study cerebral spinal fluid flow, both with important correlations to human brain function, neuropsychological disorders and neurodegenerative diseases. Analysis of rodent brain images poses the challenge of high-throughput automated computational processing to extract statistically significant information and is enabled by alignments with histologic images for precise anatomical identification and higher resolution of areas detected in MR. Quantitative assessment of solute transport in CSF and the interstitial space is challenging and requires accurate assessment of solute “mass” and anatomy. Neurovascular anatomy is at the frontier for rodent brain imaging as is imaging the awake animal to study responses to experimental provocation. Each speaker in this session will address one or more of these challenges and present new data at the frontier of the field of translational rodent brain MR.

Target Audience
Clinicians, physical chemists developing contrast agents, researchers investigating brain disorders, and trainees learning how to apply and interpret MRI.

Educational Objectives
As a result of attending this course, participants should be able to:
- Recognize techniques to study critical issues in brain structure-function in rodent models of human neuropsychological disorders, vascular dysfunction, and neurodegeneration; and
- Apply computational approaches for high-throughput unbiased rodent brain MR image analysis.