title: Hollow Polypropylene Yarns as a Biomimetic Brain Phantom for the Validation of High-Definition Fiber Tractography Imaging.
abstract: Current brain imaging methods largely fail to provide detailed information about the location and severity of axonal injuries and do not anticipate recovery of the patients with traumatic brain injury. High-definition fiber tractography appears as a novel imaging modality based on water motion in the brain that allows for direct visualization and quantification of the degree of axons damage, thus predicting the functional deficits due to traumatic axonal injury and loss of cortical projections. This neuroimaging modality still faces major challenges because it lacks a "gold standard" for the technique validation and respective quality control. The present work aims to study the potential of hollow polypropylene yarns to mimic human white matter axons and construct a brain phantom for the calibration and validation of brain diffusion techniques based on magnetic resonance imaging, including high-definition fiber tractography imaging. Hollow multifilament polypropylene yarns were produced by melt-spinning process and characterized in terms of their physicochemical properties. Scanning electronic microscopy images of the filaments cross section has shown an inner diameter of approximately 12 μm, confirming their appropriateness to mimic the brain axons. The chemical purity of polypropylene yarns as well as the interaction between the water and the filament surface, important properties for predicting water behavior and diffusion inside the yarns, were also evaluated. Restricted and hindered water diffusion was confirmed by fluorescence microscopy. Finally, the yarns were magnetic resonance imaging scanned and analyzed using high-definition fiber tractography, revealing an excellent choice of these hollow polypropylene structures for simulation of the white matter brain axons and their suitability for constructing an accurate brain phantom.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Textile Science and Technology (2C2T), University of Minho , Campus de Azurém, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal.
authors.forename: Catarina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Guise
authors.affiliation: Centre for Textile Science and Technology (2C2T), University of Minho , Campus de Azurém, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal.
authors.forename: Margarida M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Fernandes
authors.affiliation: Institute for Polymers and Composites/I3N, University of Minho , Campus of Azurém, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal.
authors.forename: João M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Nóbrega
authors.affiliation: Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh , Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, United States.
authors.forename: Sudhir
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pathak
authors.affiliation: Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh , Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, United States.
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Schneider
authors.affiliation: Centre for Textile Science and Technology (2C2T), University of Minho , Campus de Azurém, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal.
authors.forename: Raul
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fangueiro
mesh_terms: D032701:Biomimetics; D001921:Brain; D038524:Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D056324:Diffusion Tensor Imaging; D006801:Humans; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D011126:Polypropylenes
chemical_list: D011126:Polypropylenes
keywords: brain phantom; high-definition fiber tractography; hollow multifilament yarns; polypropylene; water diffusion