The assessment of the within-participant reliability of fractional anisotropy measurements of different spinal cord regions.

Motivation: DTI-MRI reliability studies are performed to validate findings, improve clinical applications, assure scientific precision, and advance methodology. Goal(s): The aim was to assess the within-participant reliability of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measurements, specifically fractional anisotropy (FA) determinations, within different regions of the (CSC). Approach: In total, 20 healthy controls were recruited over two months. Each participant was scanned twice. The within-participants coefficients of variation (CV%) was used to evaluate the reliability of FA metric between (C2-C5) for the WM, and WM sub-regions. Results: In general, the CV%s were low for the WM, DC, VC and LC regions demonstrating higher reproducibilityImpact: Results from this study indicated high within-participants reliability and demonstrated that FA may be highly effective in assessing CSC changes. Previous studies have used semi-automated or manual segmentation methods, while this study used automatic-segmentation by SCT, which provides tract-based analysis.