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Cited by 151Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and ApplicationsAdvanced MRI Techniques and ApplicationsNMR spectroscopy and applications

Comparisons between multi-component myelin water fraction, T1w/T2w ratio, and diffusion tensor imaging measures in healthy human brain structures.

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Uddin, Md. Nasir, Figley, Teresa D., Solar, Kevin G., Shatil, Anwar S., Figley, Chase R.·2019·Scientific Reports
DOI 10.1038/s41598-019-39199-xPMC PMC6384876
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Abstract

Various MRI techniques, including myelin water imaging, T1w/T2w ratio mapping and diffusion-based imaging can be used to characterize tissue microstructure. However, surprisingly few studies have examined the degree to which these MRI measures are related within and between various brain regions. Therefore, whole-brain MRI scans were acquired from 31 neurologically-healthy participants to empirically measure and compare myelin water fraction (MWF), T1w/T2w ratio, fractional anisotropy (FA), axial diffusivity (AD), radial diffusivity (RD) and mean diffusivity (MD) in 25 bilateral (10 grey matter; 15 white matter) regions-of-interest (ROIs). Except for RD vs. T1w/T2w, MD vs. T1w/T2w, moderately significant to highly significant correlations (p < 0.001) were found between each of the other measures across all 25 brain structures [T1w/T2w vs. MWF (Pearson r = 0.33, Spearman ρ = 0.31), FA vs. MWF (r = 0.73, ρ = 0.75), FA vs. T1w/T2w (r = 0.25, ρ = 0.22), MD vs. AD (r = 0.57, ρ = 0.58), MD vs. RD (r = 0.64, ρ = 0.61), AD vs. MWF (r = 0.43, ρ = 0.36), RD vs. MWF (r = −0.49, ρ = −0.62), MD vs. MWF (r = −0.22, ρ = −0.29), RD vs. FA (r = −0.62, ρ = −0.75) and MD vs. FA (r = −0.22, ρ = −0.18)]. However, while all six MRI measures were correlated with each other across all structures, there were large intra-ROI and inter-ROI differences (i.e., with no one measure consistently producing the highest or lowest values). This suggests that each quantitative MRI measure provides unique, and potentially complimentary, information about underlying brain tissues – with each metric offering unique sensitivity/specificity tradeoffs to different microstructural properties (e.g., myelin content, tissue density, etc.).

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  • ihMT and MWI likely provide more myelin-specific information than can be obtained with more general measures based on DTI or T1w/T2w ratio metrics.

    “in the case of ihMT and MWI likely also provide more myelin-specific information than can be obtained with more general measures based on DTI or T1w/T2w ratio metrics (Mädler et al., 2008; Ercan et al., 2018; Uddin et al., 2019).”

    From Potential Pitfalls of Using Fractional Anisotropy, Axial Diffusivity, and Radial Diffusivity as Biomarkers of Cerebral White Matter Microstructure (2022) · cites this paper as Uddin et al., 2019

    The Introduction calls MWF a myelin-specific measure and DTI metrics general measures of tissue microstructure; the Conclusions also say T1w/T2w ratios should not be interpreted as myelin-specific in subcortical structures. The paper mentions an earlier ihMTR comparison but does not establish that ihMT is more myelin-specific than DTI or T1w/T2w. Page numbers are unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.86)

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Sorted by citations

Authors
Uddin, M. N., Figley, T. D., Solar, K. G., Shatil, A. S., & Figley, C. R.
Affiliations
  • Health Sciences Centre (CA)
  • University of Manitoba (CA)
  • Johns Hopkins University (US)
Corresponding author
  • Uddin, Md. Nasir
  • Figley, Chase R.
ORCID
Venue
Scientific Reports
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2019-02-21
Volume
9
Issue
1
Pages
2500-2500
ISSN
2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1038/s41598-019-39199-x
PMC
PMC6384876
OpenAlex
W2920455229
Cited by
151
References
8
Citations by year
2026: 19 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 6
FWCI
11.07
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
Funders
The National Institutes of Health, The University of Manitoba, The Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre Foundation, The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Brain Canada
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced MRI Techniques and Applications
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Nuclear and High Energy Physics › NMR spectroscopy and applications
Keywords
T1w/T2w ratio, diffusion tensor imaging, fractional anisotropy, axial diffusivity, radial diffusivity, mean diffusivity, white matter microstructure, gray matter microstructure, brain regions of interest, healthy human brain, myelin content, interindividual variability
MeSH terms
Adult, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Myelin Sheath, Young Adult, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Neuroimaging, Healthy Volunteers, White Matter, Gray Matter

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