Myelin water and tensor-valued diffusion imaging: (How) are they related?

Purpose: Conventional MRI offers limited insight into specific characteristics of central nervous system tissue, whereas quantitative MRI measures can provide more detailed information about different aspects of microstructure. A multi-metric approach involving multiple quantitative measures may improve our understanding of healthy tissue and pathology. Previous work shows myelin water fraction (MWF) is related to fractional anisotropy (FA), but this relationship is complicated by confounding factors that may be resolved using tensor-valued diffusion imaging, which yields measurements of microscopic FA (μFA) and tissue heterogeneity (C). Our aims were to better understand how measures from myelin water and tensor-valued diffusion imaging relate to one another, and to demonstrate how these measures can be used to characterize microstructure in both healthy white matter and pathological changes.

Methods: We assessed the relationship between MWF, FA, μFA, and C from 25 healthy individuals through atlas comparison, correlation analysis, and tract profiling. We also applied z-score analysis and tract profiling in five people with multiple sclerosis (MS) to evaluate the multi-metric utility of these measures in assessing pathology.

Results: Although correlation analysis showed moderate, but potentially misleading relationships between metrics, tract profiling showed consistent tract-specific pattern differences between metrics in healthy tissue. In MS, MWF, μFA, and C were the most sensitive to pathological changes, showing regions of abnormality even in normal-appearing white matter and along lesional tracts, and highlighting different types of damage.

Conclusion: Using MWF, μFA, and C to separately assess myelination, anisotropy, and tissue heterogeneity enhances our ability to investigate development, aging, disease, and injury.