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Abstract #0049

Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging in mild TBI patients – a Longitudinal Study

Jonathan I Sperl1, Xia Li2, Chitresh Bhushan2, Asha Singanamalli2, Ek T Tan2, Sumit N Niogi3, A. John Tsiouris3, Teena Shetty4, Pratik Mukherjee5, Joseph C Masdeu6, and Luca Marinelli2

1GE Global Research, Garching, Germany, 2GE Global Research, Niskayuna, NY, United States, 3Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York City, NY, United States, 4Hospital for Special Surgery, New York City, NY, United States, 5University of California, San Francisco, CA, United States, 6Houston Methodist, Houston, TX, United States

Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging (DKI) allows for studying microscopic changes in human brain tissue. In traumatic brain injury (TBI), this may include axonal stretching, shearing, or swelling. Particularly in mild TBI cases, effects can be subtle and standard imaging modalities fail. We study DKI in 68 mild TBI patients with normal structural imaging in a series of four exams over a 90-day period. Using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) we observed increased kurtosis five to ten days post-injury followed by decreased kurtosis three months later. Diffusion tensor metrics such as fractional anisotropy in this study lack the sensitivity to track microstructural changes.

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