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Original Article

Exp Neurobiol 2020; 29(1): 80-92

Published online February 29, 2020

https://doi.org/10.5607/en.2020.29.1.80

© The Korean Society for Brain and Neural Sciences

Enhanced Bidirectional Connectivity of the Subthalamo-pallidal Pathway in 6-OHDA-mouse Model of Parkinson's Disease Revealed by Probabilistic Tractography of Diffusion-weighted MRI at 9.4T

A-Yoon Kim1, Chiwoo Oh2, Hyung-Jun Im2 and Hyeon-Man Baek1,3*

1Department of Health Science and Technology, GAIHST, Gachon University, Incheon 21936, 2Department of Transdisciplinary Studies, Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology, Seoul National University, Seoul 16229, 3Lee Gil Ya Cancer & Diabetes Institute, Gachon University, Incheon 21999, Korea

Correspondence to: *To whom correspondence should be addressed.
TEL: 82-32-899-6678, FAX: 82-32-899-6677
e-mail: hmbaek98@gachon.ac.kr

Received: December 27, 2019; Revised: February 15, 2020; Accepted: February 15, 2020

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, andreproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

An important challenge in Parkinson’s disease (PD) based neuroscience and neuroimaging is mapping the neuronal connectivity of the basal ganglia to understand how the disease affects brain circuitry. However, a majority of diffusion tractography studies have shown difficulties in revealing connections between distant anatomic brain regions and visualizing basal ganglia connectome. In this current study, we investigated the differences in basal ganglia connectivity between 6-OHDA induced ex-vivo PD mouse model and normal ex-vivo mouse model by using diffusion tensor imaging tractography from diffusion-weighted images obtained with a high resolution 9.4 T MR scanner. Connectivity pattern of the basal ganglia were compared between five 6-OHDA and five control ex-vivo mouse brains using results of probabilistic tractography generated with PROBTRACKX. When compared with control mouse, 6-OHDA mouse showed significant enhancements to motor territory-related subthalamopallidal and pallido-subthalamic connectivity. Multi-fiber tractography combined with diffusion MRI data has the potential to help recognize the abnormalities found in connectivity of psychiatric and neurologic disease models.

Graphical Abstract


Keywords: Basal ganglia, Parkinson’s disease, Diffusion MRI, Probabilistic tractography, Globus pallidus, Subthalamic nucleus