Amy Howard

Combining diffusion MRI and microscopy to probe tissue microstructure

What can we learn from highly detailed microscopy images that can help us infer brain connectivity in vivo? My research considers different ways in which we can combine complementary data from both microscopy and diffusion MRI, to both validate and drive biophysical modelling of the brain tissue microstructure.

Recently, our focus has been on collecting an extensive dataset, the BigMac dataset, which combines ultra-HARDI and microscopy (polarised light imaging and histology) data from the same, single brain. This dataset will provide an open access platform to interconnect microstructural features with MR signals throughout the brain.

At FMRIB, my research spans both the physics and analysis groups and is co-supervised by Profs Karla Miller & Saad Jbabdi.

Interests include:

• In vivo & postmortem MRI
• Diffusion MRI connectivity & microstructure imaging
• Biophysical modelling & model validation
• Light microscopy: polarised light imaging & histological staining
• Quantitative analysis of histology (structure tensor analysis & cell segmentation)
• MRI-microscopy co-registration 
• Data fusion / joint analysis of MRI and microscopy (e.g. hybrid tractography)