Textures in magnetic resonance images of the ischemic rat brain treated with an anti-inflammatory agent

Twenty-seven Wistar rats underwent middle cerebral artery occlusion resulting in local ischemic brain infarct. One group of rats received alpha-melanocyte stimulating hormone (α-MSH) and a control group received saline only. T2-weighted images, apparent diffusion maps, and T2 maps were recorded by MR. Texture features were calculated in the T2-weighted images and correlated to the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and the T2 values. From an array of tested texture features three independent features were tested further. Two of which were found to provide a significant discriminative classification between the control and the α-MSH groups. Furthermore, the same two texture features were significantly correlated to the ADCs. Thus, quantification of texture features can be helpful in detecting the effects of stroke therapy.