Improving Early Detection of White Matter Degeneration in Aging and Dementia along the AD continuum

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has been commonly used to characterize microstructural changes associated with aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia. However, DTI ignores non‐Gaussian diffusion, which limits its ability to describe the more restricted diffusion present within cellular structures. Neurite Orientation Dispersion and Density Imaging (NODDI) and Mean Apparent Propagator (MAP) MRI are two alternative diffusion MRI (DWI) models which can be used to calculate parameters that better characterize alterations observed in tissue microstructure.