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Abstract #5260

Characterisation of microstructural alterations in a weight drop mTBI rat model: a longitudinal diffusion MRI and histological analysis

Kim Braeckman1, Benedicte Descamps1, Leen Pieters2, Karen Caeyenberghs3, and Christian Vanhove1

1Medical Imaging and Signal Processing group, UGent, Ghent, Belgium, 2Department of Basic Medical Sciences, UGent, Ghent, Belgium, 3The Centre of Disability and Development Research, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia

TBI is the leading cause of acquired disability of young adults and due to the subtle nature, conventional scans show no evidence of injury. In this multi-shell longitudinal diffusion MRI study of mTBI in rat brain we found that DKI and white matter metrics can be used to follow up recovery in the brain at least until one week after injury. Moreover, histological analysis showed that changes in the metrics could be explained by inflammation and neurofilament compaction. On the other hand, DTI metrics could not differentiate between the sham and TBI group and were comparable in the two groups.

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