Navigating the brainstem gray matter in healthy living humans by high and ultra-high field MRI

Brainstem nuclei in humans play a crucial role in vital functions, such as arousal, autonomic homeostasis, sensory and motor relay, nociception, and sleep and have been implicated in a vast array of brain pathologies, including disorders of consciousness, sleep disorders, autonomic disorders, pain, Parkinson’s disease and other motor disorders. Yet, an in vivo delineation of most human brainstem nuclei location and connectivity using conventional imaging has been elusive because of limited sensitivity and contrast for detecting these small regions using standard neuroimaging methods. In this talk, Dr. Bianciardi will present the probabilistic atlas and connectome of 31 brainstem nuclei of the arousal, motor, autonomic and sensory systems developed by her team in healthy living humans using structural, functional and diffusion-based MRI at 7 Tesla. She will also show the translatability of 7 Tesla connectivity results to conventional 3 Tesla imaging.