Remodeling of White Matter Caused by Sickle Cell Disease

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is characterized by the presence of different degrees (mild, moderate, or severe) of chronic anemia (quantified by hemoglobin values). Alterations in WM were assessed by performing a voxel-wise analysis in the fractional anisotropy (FA, i.e., overall directionality of water diffusion), mean diffusivity (MD) and their kurtosis analogous (FAK and MK) maps. Surprisingly, when controlling for log-age, sex and hemoglobin, MK showed bigger derangements in the watershed areas than other measurements like FA and FAK despite of controlling for Hb measurements.