Diffusion weighted tractography in the common marmoset monkey at 9.4 T

The common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is a small New World primate that is becoming increasingly popular in the neurosciences as an animal model of preclinical human disease. With several major disorders characterized by alterations in neural white matter (e.g., multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia) proposed to be transgenically modelled using marmosets, the ability to reliably isolate and characterize major white matter fiber tracts with MRI will be of utility for evaluating structural brain changes related to disease processes and symptomatology. Here, we propose protocols for isolating major white matter fiber tracts in the common marmoset using in vivo ultra-high field MRI (9.4 T) diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) data. Using a high angular resolution DWI (256 diffusion encoding directions) sequence collected on four anesthetized marmosets, we provide guidelines for manually drawing fiber tracking regions of interest based on easily identified anatomical landmarks in DWI native space. These fiber tract isolation protocols are expected to be experimentally useful for visualization and quantification of individual white matter fiber tracts in both control and experimental groups of marmosets (e.g., transgenic models). As disease models in the marmoset advance, determining how macroscopic white matter anatomy is altered as a function of disease state will be relevant in bridging the existing translational gap between preclinical rodent models and human patients.

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