Abstract #1094

# Biophysical modeling of the gray matter: does the “stick” model hold?

Jelle Veraart1, Els Fieremans1, Umesh Rudrapatna2, Derek K Jones2, and Dmitry S Novikov1

1Center for Biomedical Imaging, NYU School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States, 2CUBRIC, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom

The use of term “neurites” implies that many biophysical models of diffusion in the white matter can be applied in the gray matter as well. However, the validity of representing dendrites as a collection of zero-radius impermeably sticks, a widely adopted representation of myelinated axons, has not been evaluated yet. By evaluating the diffusion-weighted signal decay as a function of the $$b$$$-value up to $$b=25000\,\mathrm{ms/\mu\,m^2}$$$ in the living human brain, we show that a more accurate representation of the diffusion in neuronal processes in the gray matter must account for a fast proton exchange between the intra- and extra-cellular compartments.

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