Silvia
De Santis1,2, Silvia Capuani1,2, Andrea Gabrielli3,4,
Bruno Maraviglia, 1,5
1Physics department, Sapienza
University, Rome, Italy; 2INFM-CNR SOFT, Sapienza University,
Rome, Italy; 3SMC - CNR/INFM, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy; 4ISC
- CNR, Rome, Italy; 5Neuroimaging Laboratory, S. Lucia Foundation,
Rome, Italy
We
propose a new procedure to detect the deviation from the mono-exponentiality
of water diffusion in brain. The stretched-exponential model has been
extended to three-dimensional space to obtain new scalar invariants. The
potentiality of this methodology has been evaluated on young healthy
subjects. Statistical analysis on selected ROIs from different cerebral
tissues underlined a different contrast compared to conventional DTI one. In
particular, GM and WM can be discriminated on the basis of their
microstructural complexity, underlying a chance for investigating subtle changes
of the water diffusive motion in tissues which are not detected by
conventional MD and FA indexes.