In Ovo Monitoring of Smooth Muscle Fiber Development in the Chick Embryo: Diffusion Tensor Imaging with Histologic Correlation

Abstract

, and to determine the correlation between histologically-derived muscle fiber fraction, day of incubation and diffusion tensor imaging fractional anisotropy values and length of tracked fibers.From a set of 82 normally developing fertile chicken eggs, 5 eggs were randomly chosen each day from incubation days 5 to 18 and cooled using a dual-cooling technique prior to and during magnetic resonance imaging at 3.0 Tesla. Smooth muscle fibers of the gizzard were tracked using region of interests placed over the gizzard. Following imaging, the egg was cracked and the embryo was fixated and sectioned, and a micrograph most closely corresponding to the acquired magnetic resonance image was made. Smooth muscle fiber fraction was determined using an automated computer algorithm. development of smooth muscle tissue