Neurite Orientation Dispersion and Density Imaging in a Rodent Model of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury
Abstract
Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) has become a focal point within the medical community due to its increased prevalence in recent years. Unfortunately, there is currently no neuroimaging technique able to accurately diagnose and monitor mTBI in-vivo. One technique that has shown great promise is neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI). NODDI is a diffusion MRI (dMRI) technique used to characterize microstructural complexity through the compartmental modelling of neural water fractions into Intra-neurite, Extra-neurite and CSF volume fractions. The overreaching theme of this thesis was to validate NODDI in a preclinical setting to then be applied to imaging of early mTBI. In the first study, NODDI was shown to have high precision and repeatability both between and within subject. Furthermore, it was found that small biological changes (