Dresden 2011 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 32: Posters: Other Topics in Biological Physics

BP 32.8: Poster

Thursday, March 17, 2011, 17:15–20:00, P3

Grating-based X-ray phase contrast tomography of human cerebellum — •Georg Schulz¹, Timm Weitkamp², Irene Zanette³, Franz Pfeiffer⁴, Christian David⁵, Elena Reznikova⁶, and Bert Müller¹ — ¹BMC, University of Basel, Switzerland — ²Synchrotron Soleil, Gif sur Yvette, France — ³ESRF, Grenoble, France — ⁴Department of Physics / Biophysics, TUM, Garching, Germany — ⁵LMN, PSI, Villigen, Switzerland — ⁶IMT, KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany

Here, we demonstrate that grating-based X-ray tomography provides much better contrast and spatial resolution than MRI microscopy for the human cerebellum. Using a grating interferometer, which consists of a beam-splitter and an analyzer absorption grating, one can detect deflection angles differences of approximately 20 nrad. The experiments performed with a photon energy of 23 keV at the beamline ID19 (ESRF Grenoble, France) reached a measurement sensitivity of the real part of the refractive index of 2.3·10⁻¹⁰ corresponding to an electron density sensitivity of 0.15 electrons per nm³ and a mass density sensitivity of 0.25 mg cm⁻³ for such aqueous specimens. The spatial resolution using the FReLoN camera with a pixel size of 5 µm was sufficient to identify individual Purkinje cells within the brain tissue without using any contrast agent. This achievement is regarded as an important milestone in three-dimensional imaging of soft tissue post mortem.