Abstract #0639

Golabchi F, Brooks D, Hoge W, Maier S, Mamata H

In nerve fibers, water diffusion is strongly influenced by the presence of axon membranes and myelin sheaths. With diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging, rotationally invariant measures of diffusion restriction such as fractional anisotropy (FA) can be obtained. Here we compare FA measured in axial spinal cord specimen sections with the density of axons determined from corresponding histological images. Results show there is a high positive linear correlation between the FA maps, and their corresponding computed axon density maps.