Correlations of SWI, QSM, and R2* map with neuromelanin and iron distributions from post-mortem human substantia nigra samples

Abstract

Spatial characterizations of neuromelanin and iron contents in human substantia nigra provide critical information in diagnosing and treating Parkinson's disease. In this work, MR investigations of susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI), R2* mapping, and quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) were performed with three post-mortem human substantia nigra samples at 7T and correlated with corresponding histological slides. Magnetization transfer (MT) based T1-weighted MRI technique was also conducted to validate its reputed neuromelanin sensitivity as well.