In vivo visualization of Alzheimer's amyloid plaques by magnetic resonance imaging in transgenic mice without a contrast agent

Clifford R. Jack, Michael Garwood, Thomas M. Wengenack, Bret Borowski, Geoffrey L. Curran, Joseph Lin, Gregor Adriany, Olli H. J. Gröhn, Roger Grimm, Joseph F. Poduslo
2004 Magnetic Resonance in Medicine  
One of the cardinal pathologic features of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is formation of senile, or amyloid, plaques. Transgenic mice have been developed that express one or more of the genes responsible for familial AD in humans. Doubly transgenic mice develop "human-like" plaques, providing a mechanism to study amyloid plaque biology in a controlled manner. Imaging of labeled plaques has been accomplished with other modalities, but only MRI has sufficient spatial and contrast resolution to
more » ... e individual plaques non-invasively. Methods to optimize visualization of plaques in vivo in transgenic mice at 9.4 T using a spin echo sequence based on adiabatic pulses are described. Preliminary results indicate that a spin echo acquisition more accurately reflects plaque size, while a T 2 * weighted gradient echo sequence reflects plaque iron content not plaque size. In vivo MRI -ex vivo MRI -in vitro histological correlations are provided. Histologically verified plaques as small as 50 μm in diameter were visualized in the living animal. To our knowledge this work represents the first demonstration of non-invasive in vivo visualization of individual AD plaques without the use of a contrast agent.
doi:10.1002/mrm.20266 pmid:15562496 pmcid:PMC2744889 fatcat:3p4uzoczivdphfwmucli4cb4u4