| Summary: | Diffusion MRI is established as an essential tool for both clinicians as well as biomedical scientists. Its application plays an important role in diagnosis and management of acute stroke, tumors, trauma, and infectious disease, among myriad other applications. Furthermore, diffusion studies are crucial for understanding disease processes caused by developmental and neurodegenerative disorders. The latest developments in quantitative diffusion imaging have broadened the potential application of the technique for both clinical and research applications. However, ongoing research is critical in order to further improve the accuracy and reproducibility of quantitative diffusion MRI techniques. Correlation time diffusion (D-CT) is emerging as an alternative technique for obtaining diffusion qMRI data[1][2][3]. Using the D-CT technique, T1 relaxation data is analyzed, using a modified BPP
relaxation theory, in order to calculate the correlation times of protons’ stochastic processes and relate these times to solution viscosity in order to calculate proton diffusion coefficients, ADCs.
The purpose of our study was to compare age related changes, during childhood and early adulthood, of global brain diffusion coefficients obtained by correlation time technique to global brain diffusion coefficients obtained by a conventional pulsed field gradient technique. In our study, we used the data of 27 subjects (0.5-24 years old), who were scanned with Mixed-TSE and DW-SS-SE-EPI pulse sequences. Subsequently, we processed the resulting directly acquired images to generate T1, T2, PD, ADC maps as well as volumetric data. We used the
student t-test and linear regression analysis to compare and interpret our data. Our results show a strong positive correlation between the volumetric data. Good correlation between ADC values was observed, with the widest discrepancy between DCT, DPFG (about 17%) observed in the youngest subjects, and the smallest discrepancy noted in the older
subjects.
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