A Comparative Study of Axon Diameter Imaging Techniques using Diffusion MRI

Hui Zhang¹, Daniel Barazany², Yaniv Assaf², Henrik M. Lundell³, Daniel C. Alexander¹, Tim B. Dyrby³

Axon diameter and density provide information about the function and performance of white matter pathways. Direct measurement of such microstructure features offers more specific biomarkers than DTI indices. Many techniques to measure axon diameter statistics using diffusion MRI have been proposed in the literature, ranging from model-based approaches to Q-space imaging, but little is known of their relative performance and consistency. This work compares several representative model-based approaches quantitatively to gain insight into how the choices of tissue model and imaging protocol impact the estimation of microstructural features.