Abstract #3469

Ong H, Wehrli F, Schwartz E, Saha P

Q-space imaging allows indirect assessment of porous material microstructure, yielding measures of pore size. The Fourier Transform of the q-space echo attenuation (propagator) is a molecular displacement probability density function. Q-space imaging of biological structures is complicated by the presence of extra-cellular and intra-cellular signal (e.g. water) and molecular exchange between these compartments, the consequences of which are poorly understood. Here, we investigate these effects by performing simulations on histologic images of mouse cervical spinal cord white matter tracts. We found that propagator full-width-half-maximum correlated with axon size over a wide range of extra/intra-cellular T2 and exchange per-meability values.