In this work, we evaluated the parameters of the Standard Model (SM), augmented with a free water compartment, on ex vivo diffusion MRI, to detect longitudinal changes caused by axonal degeneration. Parameters of SM were estimated from the rotational invariants of the diffusion signal using a supervised machine learning approach. Axonal degeneration was induced by nerve injury using a rat retinal ischemia model. Comparisons with 2D histology derived metrics revealed that SM parameters are sensitive to changes caused by axonal degeneration, particularly axon loss. SM parameters also reveal presence of microglia, and increased orientation dispersion.
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