Assessment of Normal-Appearing Brain Tissue Changes in Multiple Sclerosis Using Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging

Wenshu Qian¹, Koon-Ho Chan², Queenie Chan³, Henry Ka Fung Mak¹

Pathological and MRI studies of multiple sclerosis (MS) have shown that lesions are often located in both white matter (WM) and gray matter (GM), though the ones in GM are often underestimated. Diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) has been applied to probe the non-Gaussian diffusion property of brain tissues in vivo and proved to be less sensitive to the partial volume effects from the CSF. In this study, we demonstrate microstructural changes in normal-appearing WM and GM in MS using DKI-derived metrics, which might serve as imaging markers for early diagnosis and prognostication of the disease.