Abstract #3222

Transient anomalous diffusion micro-MRI parameters reflect white matter morphology: comparison with histology of the mouse spinal cord.

Alessandra Caporale¹, Giovanni Battista Bonomo², Giulio Tani², AdaMaria Tata³, Bice Avallone⁴, Felix Werner Wehrli⁵, and Silvia Capuani¹

¹Physics, CNR ISC, UOS Roma Sapienza, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy, ²Physics, Biophysics division, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy, ³Biology and Biotechnologies C. Darwin, Research Center of Neurobiology Daniel Bovet, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy, ⁴Biology, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy, ⁵Radiology, Laboratory for Structural, Physiologic and Functional Imaging, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Transient-anomalous diffusion (tAD) has previously been used for tumor delineation and human brain tissue characterization, however, comparison with histology is largely missing. This work aims to compare α and γ tAD parameters, DTI and q-space-imaging parameters obtained at 9.4T with micro-MRI, with the morphologic characteristics provided by optical microscopy of mouse spinal cord white matter (MSC-wm). We found that γ- and q-space-imaging are sensitive to axon diameter and effective local axon density, while α-imaging is sensitive to the heterogeneity or degree of disorder of the wm tracts. These techniques outperform DTI as a means to probe MSC-wm morphology.

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