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Abstract #0678

Tractometry Comprehensive Multi-modal Quantitative Assessment of White Matter Along Specific Tracts

Sonya Bells1, Mara Cercignani2, Sean Deoni3,4, Yaniv Assaf5, Ofer Pasternak6, C John Evans7, a Leemans8, Derek K. Jones7

1CUBRIC , School of Psychology, Cardiff, United Kingdom; 2Santa Lucia Foundation, Neuroimaging Laboratory, Rome, Italy; 3School of Engineering, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA; 4Centre of Neuroimaging Sciences-Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London, United Kingdom; 5Department of Neurobiology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel; 6Brigham & Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Bostan, MA, USA; 7CUBRIC, School of Psychology, Cardiff, United Kingdom; 8Image Sciences Institute, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands


A new technique called tractometry is introduced. Tractometry is a comprehensive assessment of tract-specific microstructural measurements is introduced. This method combines macromolecular measurements from optimized magnetization transfer imaging, multicomponent T2 species from relaxometry and axon density measurements from CHARMED along specific white matter pathways reconstructed from diffusion MRI proving us with a comprehensive assessment of multiple microstructure metrics in a unique way. Importantly, we find little correlation between proxy indices of myelination and axonal morphology, suggesting that additional complementary WM microstructural information is obtained with our approach.