Substantially thinner internal granular layer and reduced molecular layer surface in the cerebellar cortex of the Tc1 mouse model of down syndrome - a comprehensive morphometric analysis with active staining contrast-enhanced MRI

Abstract

Down Syndrome is a chromosomal disorder that affects the development of cerebellar cortical lobules. Impaired neurogenesis in the cerebellum varies among different types of neuronal cells and neuronal layers. In this study, we developed an imaging analysis framework that utilizes gadolinium-enhanced ex vivo mouse brain MRI. We extracted the middle Purkinje layer of the mouse cerebellar cortex, enabling the estimation of the volume, thickness, and surface area of the entire cerebellar cortex, the internal granular layer, and the molecular layer in the Tc1 mouse model of Down Syndrome. The morphometric analysis of our method revealed that a larger proportion of the cerebellar thinning in this model of Down Syndrome resided in the inner granule cell layer, while a larger proportion of the surface area shrinkage was in the molecular layer.

Keywords: Active staining; Cerebellar cortical laminar structure; Contrast-enhanced MRI; Cortical morphometric analysis; Cortical surface area; Cortical thickness; Cortical volume; Down syndrome; Tc1.