Fig. 6

2D CMR in (A) and (B) and quantification of generalized Q-space imaging (GQI) voxel-wise metrics in the 1% cholesterol diet + injury rabbit aorta (N = 5). B Shows representative 3D tractography image color coded to GFA (scale bar shown) generated from ROIs of the vessel wall layer. While the enlarged intima (“I”) in (A) had lower diffusion anisotropic properties than the media (“M”), quantitative analysis by GQI metrics (C) demonstrated higher RDI, ISO, and nRDI of the intima. B The 3D rendered ROI tractography CMR of the same vessel wall section in (A) with colors differentiated by diffusion anisotropic properties. DTI-FA shows equivalent trends of higher anisotropy in the media, but with higher standard deviation between readings compared to GFA. Colors in this figure are representative of GFA as quantified here. Statistical analysis performed using the paired t-test is shown with the p-value indicated as * less than 0.05 and ** less than 0.01. DTI-FA, diffusion tensor imaging fractional anisotropy; GFA, generalized fractional anisotropy; ISO, isotropic diffusion component; nRDI, non-restricted diffusion index; RDI, restricted diffusion index