Jelle
Veraart1, Wim Van Hecke2,3, Dirk Poot1, Ines
Blockx4, Annemie Van Der Linden4, Marleen Verhoye4,
Jan Sijbers1
1Vision Lab, University of Antwerp,
Antwerp, Belgium; 2Department of Radiology, Antwerp University
Hospital, Antwerp, Belgium; 3Department of Radiology, University
Hospitals of the Catholic University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; 4Bio
Imaging Lab, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
Due
to the presence of complex cellular microstructures in the brains white
matter, the diffusion weighted signal attenuation with respect to the b-value
can not accurately be approximated by the monoexponential function assumed by
DTI. Because of this, the estimation
of the diffusion coefficient and the associated diffusion parameters depend
on the b-value of the acquisition. The recently proposed higher order DKI
model fits the signal attenuation more properly as a result of which, as
demonstrated in this study, a more accurate estimation of the diffusion
parameters is obtained. In addition the parameter estimation appears b-value
independent.