Fig. 2: Diffusivity and kurtosis axial image from a 43-week 1-day GA neonate that had no pathologic findings on the MRI reading. | Pediatric Research

Fig. 2: Diffusivity and kurtosis axial image from a 43-week 1-day GA neonate that had no pathologic findings on the MRI reading.

From: Neonatal encephalopathy: a diffusional kurtosis imaging analysis of white matter to assess injury severity and recovery

Fig. 2

Top row, conventional diffusivity measures of fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD). Bottom row, kurtosis fractional anisotropy (KFA) and mean kurtosis (MK). The diffusivity has units of μm2/ms. While the FA is quite low in most regions (deep purple) except the genu and the splenium of the corpus callosum, the KFA shows higher values (red/yellow) with more diversity in the reported higher-order anisotropy, reflecting tissue complexity. Within the MD map that the thalami (purple voxels) are approaching their asymptotic lowest value, while the MK map shows greater detail in this region. Interestingly, the MK has low values within the WM, with slightly higher values in the cortex and thalamic gray matter. Eventually, during myelination and maturation, the MK in the WM will exceed that in the gray matter due to the restriction from biological barriers, such as myelin.

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