Abstract #5262

Diffusion tensor changes in acute neuroinflammation in rats

Eugene Kim¹, Camilla Simmons^1,2, Karen Randall¹, Brigida Ranieri^1,3, Paula Sureda-Gibert¹, Tobias Wood^1,2, Carmine Pariante^2,4, Federico Turkheimer^1,2, and Diana Cash^1,2

¹Department of Neuroimaging, King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, London, United Kingdom, ²Wellcome Trust Consortium for Neuroimmunology of Mood Disorders and Alzheimer's Disease, London, United Kingdom, ³Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L'Aquila, L'Aquila, Italy, ⁴Department of Psychological Medicine, King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, London, United Kingdom

Many neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders feature low level neuroinflammation that is insidious yet difficult to diagnose in vivo. Here we explore the possibility of detecting acute neuroinflammation induced by systemic administration of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in rats using in vivo diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) at 9.4T. Subtle yet widespread decreases in fractional anisotropy and increases in mean diffusivity were found in LPS-treated rats. Our results confirm the notion that DTI metrics are potential sensitive biomarkers of the dynamic inflammatory response in the brain, raising the possibility of utilizing DTI as a non-invasive in vivo assay for therapeutic interventions.

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