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Abstract #0259

Reduced fractional anisotropy in ageing: Is it driven by changes in tissue microstructure or by partial volume effects?

Johan Westborg 1 , Danielle Van Westen 1,2 , Markus Nilsson 3 , Jimmy Ltt 2 , Filip Szczepankiewicz 4 , Sebastian Palmqvist 5 , Erik Stomrud 5 , Lennart Minthon 5 , Katarina Ngga 5 , and Oskar Hansson 5

1 Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, 2 Center for Medical Imaging and Physiology, Skane University Hospital, Lund, Sweden, 3 Lund University Bioimaging Center, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, 4 Department of Medical Radiation Physics, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, 5 Clinical Memory Research Unit, Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malm, Sweden

Our aim was to disentangle the contribution of microstructural change and partial volume effects (PVE) to the reduction of the fractional anisotropy (FA) in the corpus callosum, observed in ageing. Using tractography, we show that the FA reduction with age becomes non-significant when the voxel-count in the tract segments is corrected for. An observed FA reduction in older (>71 years) subjects with ventricular enlargement was primarily driven by increased callosal atrophy. We did not observe microstructural change separate from atrophy and increased PVE.

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