Meeting Banner
Abstract #2898

Serial Atlas-Based DTI Study of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in Adults

Khader M. Hasan1, Terrell D. Staewen1, Elisabeth A. Wilde2, Emmy R. Miller3, Melisa Frisby2, James J. McCarthy4, Jill V. Hunter5, Harvey S. Levin2, Claudia S. Peterson3, Ponnada A. Narayana1

1Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, United States; 2Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United States; 3Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United States; 4Emergency Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, United States; 5Pediatric Radiology, Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, TX, United States


In this report, we applied DTI methods serially on cohorts of healthy orthopedic controls and mTBI to characterize regional and global macrostructural and microstructural attributes of white matter, gray matter and cerebrospinal fluid to identify and differentiate patterns of acute and short-term recovery trends. Given that some previous DTI reports on mTBI in adults implicated the left anterior corona radiata, we analyzed this entire zone using atlas-based methods. Our analysis of the cross-sectional and serial data demonstrates dissociation between volumetric (macrostructural) and tissue integrity (microstructural) attributes and show the potential utility of DTI to capture a pattern of transient vasogenic edema using the DTI measurements of the corona radiata.