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Abstract #0879

Non-Uniform Diffusion Encoding Directions Schemes to Minimize Fiber Direction Uncertainty in Skeletal Muscle DTI

Dimitrios C. Karampinos1, Christopher P. Hess1, Konstantinos Arfanakis2, Suchandrima Banerjee3, Eric T. Han3, Thomas M. Link1, Sharmila Majumdar1

1Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States; 2Biomedical Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, United States; 3Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, United States


Fiber direction measurements in skeletal muscle DTI are limited by low precision because of the low SNR of muscle diffusion-weighted MRI and the low anisotropy of muscle diffusion tensor. However, in most skeletal muscles, fibers have a preferential orientation. In the present work, a priori assumptions about the dominant fiber orientation are used to derive non-uniform diffusion encoding schemes that minimize the elliptical cone of uncertainty. Simulations show that optimized schemes can decrease the fiber direction uncertainty up to 37% relative to uniform schemes. Preliminary in vivo results in the human tibialis anterior muscle are presented.