Maria F. Falangola1, David Guilfoyle2, Edward S. Hui1, Caixia Hu2, Scott Gerum2, John LaFrancois3, Xingju Nie1, Jens Jensen1, Ali Tabesh1, Joseph A. Helpern
1Radiology, Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), Charleston, SC, United States; 2Medical Physics, Nathan Kline Institute, Orangeburg, New York, NY, United States; 3Dementia Research, Nathan Kline Institute, Orangeburg, New York, NY, United States
Since the transition from young to aged adult during the normal aging process leads to changes in grey matter morphology, characterizing the age-related diffusion patterns in the rodent brain is important for interpreting and differentiating the changes associated with pathological process in rodents models of neurodegenerative diseases. Diffusional Kurtosis Imaging (DKI) quantifies the non-Gaussian behavior of water diffusion, contributing additional information beyond that provided by diffusion tensor imaging. Here we report that the DKI can characterize the age-related microstructural changes in the cortex and sub-cortical regions in the normal mouse brain.
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