Post-mortem Magnetic Resonance Imaging as an Additional Tool of the Neuropathological Examination of Neurodegenerative and Cerebrovascular Diseases

Abstract

Neuropathological examination of post-mortem brains of patients with dementia due to neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular changes remains important, as the family wants to be sure about the clinical diagnosis and the risk of a hereditary disease. 7.0-tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be applied as an additional tool to examine post-mortem brains of patients with neurodegenerative and cerebrovasular diseases. It allows examination of serial coronal sections of a cerebral hemisphere and horizontal sections of brainstem and cerebellum and comparison with the neuropathological lesions. Post-mortem MRI can show the degree and the distribution of the cerebral atrophy. Additional small cerebrovascular lesions can be quantified. The degree of iron load, not due to microbleeds, can be evaluated in different basal ganglia and brainstem structures. Three to six serial sections of a cerebral hemisphere and one section of brainstem and cerebellum allow the evaluation of the most important brain changes and to select the small samples to be used for histological diagnostic purposes. These correlation studies are extremely important for the future, when more 7.0-tesla MRI machines will be available forin vivoclinical-radiological diagnosis. This article is a review of post-mortem MRI data in the brains of patients with neurodegenerative and vascular dementias.