Meeting Banner
Abstract #4521

Characterizing Tissue Microstructure Orientation by Multi-Directional Sub-Pixel Enhancement of Nonuniform Tissue (SPENT) Sequence

Bailiang Chen1, Bernard Siow2, David Carmichael3, Freddy Odille2, Roger Ordidge1, Andrew Todd-Pokropek1

1Medical Physics & Bioengineering, University College London, London, United Kingdom; 2Centre for Medical Image Computing, University College London, London, United Kingdom; 3Department of Clinical & Experimental Epilepsy, UCL, Institute of Neurology, , London, United Kingdom


At different resolution levels, the net appearance of the micro-architecture feature different degrees of tissue homogeneity. This type of information can be revealed by the recently developed SPENT sequence, leading to a quantitative measurement of the direction specific inhomogeniety. When measuring a sufficient number of directions, a preferred direction of underlying structure can be identified by creating a structure tensor. Here a multi-directional SPENT sequence series was developed and applied to a chicken femur to characterize its trabecular bone orientation. The orientation characterization was further validated by applying the methodology to a pineapple sample with an obvious fibre orientation.