Radial Fractional Anisotropy Mean and Radial Mean Diffusivity Mean: New metric in the Study of Spinal Cord Tissue

Introduction: Conventional magnetic resonance imaging in the Spinal Cord (SC) is often insufficient to diagnose and assess the stage and progression of ailments. Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) and its ability to delineate the motion of water molecules and subsequently white matter tracts has become more important during the last years. Nevertheless, due to the lack of resolution and the poor signal to noise ratio, it is still one of the big challenges in clinical MR research. In this abstract a new approach to quantitatively assess SC tissue is presented. This new approach is based in the combination of quantitative information obtained from DTI; Fractional Anisotropy (FA) and Mean Diffusivity (MD); taking advantage of the singular geometry of the SC.