How does DWI correlate with white matter structures?

Diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) is widely used to characterize brain white matter (WM), particularly through the use of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). In this study the spatial characteristics of DWI in WM of cat visual cortex were investigated at 9.4T at very high resolution. It is shown that the spatial extent of the WM tract as measured from the DWI images depends highly on the b-value. In particular, when the diffusion gradient is applied perpendicular to the main direction of the fiber tract, the estimated thickness of the tract at the commonly used b-value of 1000 s/mm² exceeds by 50% the thickness as it appears on a T₂-weighted image. Only at b-values greater than 6000 s/mm² does the thickness of the tract approach the thickness characterized by the T₂-weighted image and that observed on histological slices of the same area. Further analysis of these results indicates that the choice of b-value of 1000 s/mm² may not be optimal for the demarcation of anisotropic WM structures. DWI at high b-value may contain spatial information that is more specific to WM tracts.