7T DTI in Mild Chronic Traumatic Brain Injury: Assessment of the Superior Longitudinal Fasciculus and Cingulum Bundle

Dustin Cunningham¹, Seongjin Choi¹, John Corrigan², Jennifer Bogner², W Mysiw², Cherian Renil Zachariah¹, Michael V. Knopp¹, Petra Schmalbrock¹

In order to differentiate mild chronic traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients from age matched healthy controls we explored the use of 7T diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of the cingulum bundle (CB) and the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF). We observed qualitative and quantitative differences between the two groups that included statistically different fractional anisotropy (FA) values for a ROI placed in the CB and visually different fibers for the SLF in the right hemisphere of TBI patients. Our results are encouraging because they support the idea that DTI may be useful as a tool to diagnose and characterize mild chronic TBI.