Abstract #2101

Chronic anemia: the effects on the connectivity of white matter

Clio Gonzalez Zacarias^1,2, Soyoung Choi^1,2, Richard M. Leahy^2,3, and John C. Wood^4,5

¹Neuroscience Graduate Program, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ²Signal and Image Processing Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ³Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁴Department of Pediatrics and Radiology, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁵Biomedical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Synopsis

Chronic anemia is commonly observed in patients with hemoglobinopathies, mainly represented by disorders in hemoglobin structure (e.g., sickle cell anemia, SCA) and hemoglobin synthesis (e.g., thalassemia syndrome). These hemoglobin disorders have been associated with white matter alterations. In this study, changes in white matter connectivity on chronic anemic patients were characterized by quantifying the volumetric mean of fractional anisotropy along the pathway of tracks connecting two ROIs (defined by BrainSuite’s BCI-DNI atlas) and comparing it with healthy individuals. SCA patients showed interhemispheric FA derangements but not to the same extent as changes observed in the watershed areas of non-SCA patients.

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