Abstract #0703

Diffusion Kurtosis - a Sensitive Marker For Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Jiachen Zhuo^1,2, Jake Mullins^2,3, Julie Hazelton⁴, Jonathan Simon⁵, Su Xu^1,2, Tuo Li, Gary Fiskum⁴, Rao Gullapalli^1,2

¹Radiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; ²Core for Translational Research in Imaging at Maryland (C-TRIM), University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD; ³Neuroscience, University of Maryland Baltimore, Baltimore, MD; ⁴Anesthesiology & Center for Shock Trauma & Anesthesiology Research, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD; ⁵Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD

Understanding of tissue alterations at early stage following TBI is critical for injury management and prevention of severe secondary damage to the brain. In this study, both DTI and DKI parameters including mean diffusivity, fractional anisotropy & mean kurtosis (MK) were investigated for brain tissue damage at acute and sub-acute stages post-controlled cortical impact injury in a rat model. A significantly increased MK was observed at the sub-acute stage that was not picked up by MD & FA and correlated with increased astrocytic immunoreactivity. Our study indicates that diffusion kurtosis may serve as a sensitive marker for TBI.