Jimmy Ltt1, Danielle van Westen1, Markus Nilsson2, Ronnie Wirestam2, Freddy Sthlberg2,3, Stig Holts1,3, Sara Brockstedt1,2
1MR Department, Center for Medical Imaging and Physiology, Lund University Hospital, Lund, Sweden; 2Department of Medical Radiation Physics, Lund University, Lund, Sweden; 3Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
Diffusion time dependence of the diffusion weighted signal for high b-values in ischemic stroke lesions was recently reported, allowing for the extraction of more information on the tissue microstructure. Here, we express the diffusion time dependence as a change kurtosis, where kurtosis reflects the degree of deviation from free diffusion. The changes in kurtosis for different diffusion times were calculated for nine ischemic stroke patients, examined at a 3T clinical scanner. The change in kurtosis successfully visualized the lesions. Changes in kurtosis are suggested to reflect changes in cell sizes as well as in cell physiology (cellular membrane functionality).
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