Brain axial and radial diffusivity changes with age and gender in healthy adults.

White matter integrity changes with age, with the extent of variation dependent on attributes such as sex and oligodendrocyte health. Quantification of myelin and axonal integrity in healthy people would provide normative values necessary to determine pathology-related tissue characteristics with normal-aging and gender. We assessed white matter integrity with diffusion tensor imaging-based axial and radial diffusivity procedures (3.

Altered global and regional brain mean diffusivity in patients with obstructive sleep apnea.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common and progressive disorder accompanied by severe cardiovascular and neuropsychological sequelae, presumably induced by brain injury resulting from the intermittent hypoxia and cardiovascular processes accompanying the syndrome. However, whether the predominant brain tissue pathology is acute or chronic in newly-diagnosed, untreated OSA subjects is unclear; this assessment is essential for revealing pathological processes. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)-based mean diffusivity (MD) procedures can detect and differentiate acute from chronic pathology and may be useful to reveal processes in the condition.