Maximum likelihood estimation of cardiac fiber bundle orientation from arbitrarily spaced diffusion weighted images

Diffusion Weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DW-MRI) is capable to measure the fiber architecture of tissues non-invasively (Basser et  al., 1994). Based on the relation between gray values within a pulsed gradient spin echo experiment (Stejskal and Tanner, 1965):
the tissue anisotropy information – represented as diffusion tensor – can be connected with the diffusion encoding directions and the measured gray values . Since the diffusion tensor is symmetric positive definite, at least 6 gray value measurements plus one non-weighted reference measurement are required to estimate all diffusion tensor components, but usually between 10 to 20 are acquired in order to compensate for measurement noise.

Source: Medical Image Analysis - April 4, 2017 Category: Radiology Authors: Andreas Nagler, Crist óbal Bertoglio, Christian T. Stoeck, Sebastian Kozerke, Wolfgang A. Wall Source Type: research