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Abstract #1629

Optimizing Accuracy and Precision in High Resolution Diffusion Tensor Imaging of the Ex Vivo Rat Heart

Patrick William Hales1, Rebecca Burton2, Christian Bollensdorff2, Jurgen E. Schneider1

1Cardiovascular Medicine, Oxford University, Oxford, Oxon, United Kingdom; 2Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics, Oxford University, Oxford, Oxon, United Kingdom


The influence of both SNR and diffusion gradient sampling scheme on the precision and accuracy of high resolution (203 μm) DTI data acquired in the ex vivo rat heart has been investigated. We demonstrate how the use of reduced encoding of diffusion weighted images using the approximate generalized series reconstruction technique can increase SNR without increasing scan time, and how this can be employed to reduce the overall error in the primary eigenvector orientation.