Graduate Student Oral Presentation 4
DTI-based Connectivity in Isolated Neural Ganglia:
A Default Structural Graph in A Small World Framework
A.A.O. Ould Ismail 1,2, Ghoncheh Amouzandeh 1,3, Samuel C. Grant 1,2
1
The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
2
Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, Tallahassee, FL, USA
3
Department of Physics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) provides a unique contrast based on the restricted directionality of water
movement in an anisotropic environment. As such, DTI-based tractography can be used to characterize and
quantify the structural connectivity within neural tissue. Here, DTI-based connectivity within isolated
abdominal ganglia (ABG) of aplysia Californica is analyzed using network theory. In addition to quantifying
the regional physical proprieties of the fractional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC),
DTI tractography was \