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Abstract #4942

Evaluating Microstructural Integrity of Cortical and Deep Gray Matter over a Season of High School Football Using Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging and Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping

Nan-Jie Gong1,2, Samuel Kuzminski3, Michael Clark4, Melissa Fraser4, Mark Sundman5, Kevin Guskiewicz4, Jeffrey R Petrella2, and Chunlei Liu1,2

1University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States, 2Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, United States, 3University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, United States, 4University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, United States, 5University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States

Over the course of a single high school football season, QSM showed no evidence of microhemorrhage or iron-related changes; however, we observed significant microstructural alterations, as reflected by DKI metrics, in cortical and deep gray matter over the course of a single high school football season. These microstructural changes correlated with the frequency of head impacts, suggesting that DKI imaging of cortical and deep gray matter may yield valuable biomarkers for tracking subclinical traumatic brain injury in contact-sport athletes.

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