MRI-Based Large Deformation High Dimensional Mapping of the Hippocampus in Rats: Development and Validation of the Technique

Abstract

Purpose: To report the detection of structural and functional biological changes in living animals using small animal in vivo MRI that complements traditional ex vivo histological techniques. We report the development and validation of the application of large deformation high dimensional mapping (HDM-LD) segmentation for the hippocampus in the rat. Materials and Methods: High resolution volumetric T2 weighted MRI images were acquired at 4.7 Tesla from six male in-breed nonepileptic Wistar rats. Two HDM-LD seg- mentations of the hippocampus (automated 1 and auto- mated 2) were compared with the manual segmentations of two investigators who independently segmented the hip- pocampi (manual 1 a..