Jerry
S. Cheung1, Enfeng Wang1, 2, Phillip Zhe Sun1
1Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, MGH and Harvard Medical School, Charleston, MA 02129, United States; 2Department of Radiology, 3rd Affiliated Hospital, Zhengzhou University, China
By providing detailed properties on water diffusion and therefore more specific information on microstructural environment, diffusional kurtosis imaging (DKI) may allow better characterization on heterogeneous ischemic cerebral tissue. In this study, we examined and compared mean diffusion (MD) and mean kurtosis (MK) lesions in a transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) ischemia rat model. Our results demonstrated that substantial mismatch between MD and MK lesions existed during MCAO, yet largely vanished following reperfusion. These initial findings suggest that diffusional kurtosis in addition to water diffusivity may improve understanding of the diffusion changes related to microstructural disturbances following acute cerebral ischemic injury.