Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging maps neural damage in the EAE model of multiple sclerosis.
Andrey Chuhutin, Brian Hansen, Agnieszka Włodarczyk, Trevor Owens, Noam Shemesh, Sune Nørhøj Jespersen
Abstract
* images were used to delineate focal demyelination/inflammation. Our results reveal a strong relationship between disability and measured microstructural parameters in normal appearing white matter and gray matter. Relationships between disability and mean of the kurtosis tensor, radial kurtosis, radial diffusivity were similar to what has been found in other hypomyelinating MS models, and in patients. However, the changes in biophysical modeling parameters and in particular in extra-axonal axial diffusivity were clearly different from previous studies employing other animal models of MS. In conclusion, our data suggest that DKI and microstructural modeling can provide a unique contrast capable of detecting EAE-specific changes correlating with clinical disability.