Gerard Thompson1, Sha Zhao1, Alan Jackson1
1University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has been widely used to study white matter in health and disease. Quantitative magnetization transfer (qMT) imaging has also been used to a lesser extent. We provide evidence that fractional anisotropy (FA) form DTI and bound fraction (f) from qMT provide complementary information in white matter. Importantly, f remains high even in areas of reduced FA due to fiber crossing. A combination of f and FA may therefore provide complementary information about white matter in health and disease, and allow interrogation of regions of fiber crossing and sub-cortical regions not normally assessable using FA alone.