A 2015 research paper by Farshid Sepehrband and colleagues has been nominated for the Human Brain Mapping Editor's Choice Award which places their paper in the top 5% of all Human Brain Mapping papers for 2015. Candidates for the Editor's Choice Award are nominated by the Associate Editors of Human Brain Mapping, with each Associate Editor nominating one paper that they regard as the finest they handled in 2015.
Farshid was awarded his PhD entitled "Axonal morphometry using diffusion-weighted MRI" in December 2015 and he is currently working in the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, University of Southern California.
The research paper described a novel method, termed ABTIN, which can be used to determine absolute tissue density values from relative intracellular and intraneurite density values obtained with diffusion MRI. Data obtained using CAI's 16.4T MRI and the 7T human scanner were analysed using the method and the myelin density estimates obtained were in good agreement with the results of ex vivo electron microscopy and published density estimates in healthy human brain. ABTIN will be most useful in studies of diseases in which quantitation of loss/damage in axons and/or cell densities may be informative such as studies of the effects of potential disease modifying therapies in multiple sclerosis. The method may also be relevant to neurodevelopment and ageing studies.
Sepherband, Clark, Ullmann, Kurniawan, Leanage, Reutens and Yang, “Brain Tissue Compartment Density Estimated Using Diffusion-Weighted MRI Yields Tissue Parameters Consistent With Histology” Human Brain Mapping, 2015 Jun 11. doi:10.1002/hbm.22872.
