Diffusion MRI Measurement of Axon Diameter Alterations Induced by White Matter Plasticity

Lea Vinokur¹, Daniel Barazany¹, Shimrit Tsur-Moryosef¹, Yaniv Assaf¹

In this study our goal was to measure structural plasticity related changes in white matter induced by spatial learning. Our focus was on the Corpus Callosum of rats that underwent a spatial learning and memory test. We used AxCaliber, an advanced diffusion MRI method to extract morphological parameters of the tissue, such as the Axon Diamter Distribution (ADD) and axonal density. Based on the retrieved parameters the CC's are clustered into 6 clusters using the k-means clustering algorithm. Statistical analysis was performed on each cluster, comparing the learning group to two control groups.