Optical coherence tomography visualizes neurons in human entorhinal cortex.
The cytoarchitecture of the human brain is of great interest in diverse fields: neuroanatomy, neurology, neuroscience, and neuropathology. Traditional histology is a method that has been historically used to assess cell and fiber content in theex vivohuman brain. However, this technique suffers from significant distortions. We used a previously demonstrated optical coherence microscopy technique to image individual neurons in several square millimeters of en-face tissue blocks from layer II of the human entorhinal cortex, over 50 µm in depth. The same slices were then sectioned and stained for Nissl substance. We registered the optical coherence tomography (OCT) images with the corresponding Nissl stained slices using a nonlinear transformation. The neurons were then segmented in both images and we quantified the overlap. We show that OCT images contain information about neurons that is comparable to what can be obtained from Nissl staining, and thus can be used to assess the cytoarchitecture of theex vivohuman brain with minimal distortion. With the future integration of a vibratome into the OCT imaging rig, this technique can be scaled up to obtain undistorted volumetric data of centimeter cube tissue blocks in the near term, and entire human hemispheres in the future.
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Department of Radiology, 149 Thirteen Street, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, United States.
Caroline
C
Magnain
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Department of Radiology, 149 Thirteen Street, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, United States.
Jean C
JC
Augustinack
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Department of Radiology, 149 Thirteen Street, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, United States.
Ender
E
Konukoglu
Massachusetts General Hospital, Pathology Service, C.S. Kubik Laboratory for Neuropathology, Warren Building 225, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States.
Matthew P
MP
Frosch
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Department of Radiology, 149 Thirteen Street, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, United States.
Sava
S
Sakadžić
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Department of Radiology, 149 Thirteen Street, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, United States.
Ani
A
Varjabedian
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Department of Radiology, 149 Thirteen Street, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, United States.
Nathalie
N
Garcia
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Department of Radiology, 149 Thirteen Street, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, United States.
Van J
VJ
Wedeen
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Department of Radiology, 149 Thirteen Street, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, United States.
David A
DA
Boas
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Department of Radiology, 149 Thirteen Street, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, United States ; MIT, Computer Science and AI Laboratory, the Stata Center, Building 32, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States.
Bruce
B
Fischl
histology; neuroanatomy; neurons; neuropathology; neurophotonics; optical coherence microscopy