Francesco Grussu1,
Torben Schneider1, Hugh Kearney1, Hui Zhang2,
David H. Miller1, Olga Ciccarelli3, Daniel C. Alexander2,
Claudia Angela M. Wheeler-Kingshott1
1NMR
Research Unit, Queen Square MS Centre, Department of Neuroinflammation, UCL
Institute of Neurology, London, England, United Kingdom; 2Department
of Computer Science and Centre for Medical Image Computing, University
College London, London, England, United Kingdom; 3NMR Research
Unit, Queen Square MS Centre, Department of Brain Repair and Rehabilitation,
UCL Institute of Neurology, London, England, United Kingdom
We investigate the feasibility of Neurite Orientation Dispersion Imaging (NODDI) in the spinal cord. NODDI is a new technique that promises novel markers of neuronal density and dispersion, which may be informative in diseases like Multiple Sclerosis (MS) beyond routine Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI). Here we compare NODDI with standard DTI metrics in healthy volunteers and MS patients. NODDI disentangles the microscopic sources of DTI measures and provides better discrimination between very coherent and less coherent neural tissue structures. Further work will improve the acquisition protocol and study NODDI in a larger patient cohort.