Imperial College London
Alternate

ProfessorAlexandraPorter

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Materials

Professor of Bio-imaging and Analysis
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 9691a.porter

 
 
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Location

 

B341 Royal School of MinesRoyal School of MinesSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Bernardini:2022:10.1038/s42003-022-04052-x,
author = {Bernardini, A and Trovatelli, M and Klosowski, M and Pederzani, M and Zani, D and Brizzola, S and Porter, A and Rodriguez, y Baena F and Dini, D},
doi = {10.1038/s42003-022-04052-x},
journal = {Communications Biology},
title = {Reconstruction of ovine axonal cytoarchitecture enables more accurate models of brain biomechanics},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-022-04052-x},
volume = {5},
year = {2022}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - There is an increased need and focus to understand how local brain microstructure affects the transport of drug molecules directly administered to the brain tissue, for example in convection-enhanced delivery procedures. This study reports a systematic attempt to characterize the cytoarchitecture of commissural, long association and projection fibres, namely the corpus callosum, the fornix and the corona radiata, with the specific aim to map different regions of the tissue and provide essential information for the development of accurate models of brain biomechanics. Ovine samples are imaged using scanning electron microscopy combined with focused ion beam milling to generate 3D volume reconstructions of the tissue at subcellular spatial resolution. Focus is placed on the characteristic cytological feature of the white matter: the axons and their alignment in the tissue. For each tract, a 3D reconstruction of relatively large volumes, including a significant number of axons, is performed and outer axonal ellipticity, outer axonal cross-sectional area and their relative perimeter are measured. The study of well-resolved microstructural features provides useful insight into the fibrous organization of the tissue, whose micromechanical behaviour is that of a composite material presenting elliptical tortuous tubular axonal structures embedded in the extra-cellular matrix. Drug flow can be captured through microstructurally-based models using 3D volumes, either reconstructed directly from images or generated in silico using parameters extracted from the database of images, leading to a workflow to enable physically-accurate simulations of drug delivery to the targeted tissue.
AU  - Bernardini,A
AU  - Trovatelli,M
AU  - Klosowski,M
AU  - Pederzani,M
AU  - Zani,D
AU  - Brizzola,S
AU  - Porter,A
AU  - Rodriguez,y Baena F
AU  - Dini,D
DO  - 10.1038/s42003-022-04052-x
PY  - 2022///
SN  - 2399-3642
TI  - Reconstruction of ovine axonal cytoarchitecture enables more accurate models of brain biomechanics
T2  - Communications Biology
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-022-04052-x
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/100296
VL  - 5
ER  -
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