Ileana O Jelescu1, Magdalena Zurek1, Kerryanne V Winters1, Jelle Veraart1, Anjali Rajaratnam1, Nathanael S Kim1, James S Babb1, Timothy M Shepherd1, Dmitry S Novikov1, Sungheon G Kim1, and Els Fieremans1
White Matter Tract Integrity (WMTI) metrics
derived from diffusion data provide a compartment-specific characterization of
white matter. Here, we evaluated the specificity of the axonal water fraction
(AWF) and extra-axonal radial diffusivity (De,┴) by
assessing their correlations to metrics derived from electron microscopy (EM),
in the splenium of control, cuprizone-treated and recovering mice. As the model
predicted, the WMTI-derived AWF correlated very strongly with the EM-derived
AWF, but not with the g-ratio, while De,┴
correlated with the g-ratio, but not with the EM-derived AWF. WMTI
parameters are therefore promising biomarkers for specific biophysical aspects
of white matter pathology in vivo.
