In heterogeneous brain tissue microenvironments, the probability distribution of spin displacements deviates from Gaussianity. Examining the non-Gaussian behavior of the diffusion-encoded signal with diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) could potentially allow probing cellular heterogeneity and injury-induced changes that are not discernible in the limited (q,t)-regime that pulsed-gradient DTI with conventional b-values explores. Here, we investigated the sensitivity of DKI to intrinsic cellular heterogeneity and mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI)-induced gray matter (GM) alterations in the rat brain. The results demonstrate distinct contrasts in mean kurtosis maps reflecting microstructural heterogeneity in GM regions, and detection of region-specific alterations in the cortex and thalamus.
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