Abstract #1933

MRI Assessment of Passive Muscular Mechanics in Vivo Using Intensity Based Nonrigid B-Spline Registration: Effects of Epimuscular Myofascial Force Transmission

Alper Yaman¹, Maria J. Ledesma-Carbayo², Guus C. Baan³, Peter A. Huijing³, Can A. Yucesoy¹, Cengizhan Ozturk¹

¹Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey; ²Departamento de Ingeniera Electrnica, Universidad Politcnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain; ³Research Instituut. Move, Faculteit Bewegingswetenschappen, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Netherlands

In addition to myotendinous pathways, important pathways for transmission of muscle force are comprised by connective tissue structures providing mechanical linkage between muscles and neighboring muscular and nonmuscular tissues. Experimentally and using finite element modeling, such epimuscular myofascial force transmission (EMFT) has been shown to affect muscular mechanics substantially in the rat, leading to proximo-distal force differences and major sarcomere length heterogeneity. The purpose of this work is showing effects of EMFT using MRI in human in vivo by calculating strain fields via intensity based nonrigid B-spline semilocal registration.