Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging as a Tool in Neurotoxicology

This commentary serves as an introduction to the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique called diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) employed in the study by Arab et al. in the present issue of Neurotoxicology Research. In their study, DKI is employed for longitudinal investigation of a methamphetamine intoxication model of Parkinson's disease. The study employs an impressive number of animals and combines DKI with behavioral analysis at multiple time points. The commentary discusses some aspects of the study design especially the strength of combining behavioral analysis with MRI in an effort to provide as thorough a characterization and validity assessment of the animal model and cohort as possible. The potential clinical value of combining multiple MRI techniques (multimodal MRI) in PD is discussed as well as the benefit of multimodal MRI combined with behavioral analysis and subsequent histological analysis for in-depth characterization of animal models.