Fiber-specific white matter properties related to clinical features in military service members after a remote mild traumatic brain injury

Motivation: Identifying brain changes that are associated with repetitive insult and persistent post-concussive symptoms can be potentially useful in differentiating mild traumatic brain injury from purely psychological disorders. Goal(s): Apply fixel-based analysis (FBA) method to assess the relationships between clinical symptoms and tissue features using advanced dMRI techniques, and to identify WM changes that are associated with repetitive insult in service members (SMs). Approach: Employ FBA, tractography and TSA on NODDI in SMs with mTBI. Results: Unique anatomical locations where structural properties related to clinical symptoms. The white matter changes over the brainstem fibers are associated with the number of total lifetime TBI. Impact: Advanced diffusion MRI techniques using higher model should be considered as a choice of option in assessing subtle white matter alterations in mild traumatic brain injury presenting due to the great heterogeneity of underlying pathological features.