MRI in identification of the nucleus in normal hypothalamus

Objective: To identify the nucleus in hypothalamus with MRI in healthy adults. Methods: Twenty healthy adult volunteers underwent coronal MRI with conventional T1W and T2W sequence. Coronal sectional specimens of three human adult heads were made to identify the nucleus in hypothalamus. The anatomy and imaging features of the nucleuses were observed contrastively. Results: In the sectional specimens, most of the nucleuses in hypothalamus were identified with whiter matter as reference, such as the anterior commissure, fornix, optic tract and mammilothalamic tract. Compared with the signal of the cortex, the above whither matter structures showed slight high T1 signal and slight low T2 signal in MRI. The preoptic nucleus was identified according to the relative position of anterior commissure and third ventricle, with slight high T1 signal and slight low T2 signal, whereas the supraoptic nucleus was identified according to the relative position of anterior commissure and optic tract, with equal T1 signal and slight high T2 signal. The paraventricular nucleus and infundibular nucleus were identified according to the relative position of fornix and third ventricle, with equal T1 signal and slight high T2 signal. The mamillary nucleus was identified according to the relative position of mammilothalamic tract, with equal T1 and slight low T2 signal. Conclusion: The main nucleuses in hypothalamus show different features in MRI, which can be identified by MRI with white matter and ventricles as the location sign. Copyright © 2013 by the Press of Chinese Journal of Medical Imaging Technology.