Diffusional kurtosis imaging detects age-related grey matter changes in the normal mouse brain

Abstract

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