Pigs are an exceptionally good animal model due to their similarities to humans in development, nutrition, and immunology. Our research uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to evaluate the impact of nutrition on brain development in the pig. The image presented is the tractography of a pig brain created by using DSI Studio. Tractography is a 3D modeling technique used to visually represent data from diffusion tensor imaging, an MRI technique. Diffusion tensor imaging measures the diffusion of water molecules to estimate the white matter organization of the brain. It is sensitive to microstructural tissue properties, thus can provide insight into tissue architecture, integrity, and orientation. This image is the same pig brain presented in four different views, the bottom of the brain (leftmost image), the right side (upper-middle image), and left side (lower middle image) of the brain, and the top of the brain (rightmost image). The different colors represent the different directions of the fiber tracts, with blue representing fibers extending from the front to the back of the brain, green representing fibers extending from the top to the bottom of the brain, and red representing fibers extending from the left to the right side of the brain.
