In Vivo Characterization of Transport Anisotropy in Rat Spinal Cord Using Diffusion Tensor Imaging Available to Purchase

Biotransport in nervous tissues is complicated by the existence of neural fibers. These axonal fibers result in inhomogeneous and anisotropic extracellular transport, which complicates the prediction of local drug delivery such as convection-enhanced delivery [1]. Previous studies by our group [4] have shown that by using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) [2, 3], anisotropic transport in rat spinal cord can be modeled using computational models, and consequently extracellular flows which influence drug transport can be well predicted. In previous studies, DTI-based models used data from an excised and fixed rat spinal cord. In the current study, we extend our DTI study to in vivo measures, and report the in vivo characterization of transport anisotropy in rat spinal cord. The MR imaging method is presented and the DTI data is discussed.