Age-Related Measurements of the Myelin Water Fraction derived from 3D multi-echo GRASE reflect Myelin Content of the Cerebral White Matter.

ABSTRACT: Myelin Water Fraction (MWF) measurements derived from quantitative Myelin Water Imaging (MWI) may detect demyelinating changes of the cerebral white matter (WM) microstructure. Here, we investigated age-related alterations of the MWF in normal aging brains of healthy volunteers utilizing two fast and clinically feasible 3D gradient and spin echo (GRASE) MWI sequences with 3 mm and 5 mm isotropic voxel size. In 45 healthy subjects (age range: 18-79 years), distinct regions of interest (ROI) were defined in the cerebral WM including corticospinal tracts. For the 3 mm sequence, significant correlations of the mean MWF with age were found for most ROIs (r < -0.8 for WM ROIs; r = -0.55 for splenium of corpus callosum; r = -0.75 for genu of corpus callosum; p < 0.001 for all ROIs). Similar corre

SUBMITTER: Faizy TD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6177453 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature