Brain iron imaging markers in the presence of white matter hyperintensities

To investigate the relationship between pathological brain iron deposition and white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) in cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD), via Monte Carlo simulations of magnetic susceptibility imaging and the development of a novel imaging marker called the Expected Iron Coefficient (EIC).

A synthetic pathological model of a different number of impenetrable spheres at random locations was employed to represent pathological iron deposition. The diffusion process was simulated with a Monte Carlo method with adjustable parameters to manipulate sphere size, distribution, and extracellular properties. Quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) was performed in a clinical dataset to study CSVD to derive and evaluate QSM, R2*, the iron microenvironment coefficient (IMC), and the EIC in the presence of WMHs.

The simulations show that QSM signals increase in the presence of increased tissue iron, confirming that the EIC increases with pathology. Clinical results demonstrate that while QSM, R2*, and the IMC do not show significant differences in brain iron, the EIC does in the context of CSVD.

The EIC is more sensitive to subtle changes in brain iron deposition caused by pathology, even when QSM, R2*, and the IMC fail.