Dieter Klatt1, Uwe Hamhaber2, Sebastian Papazoglou1, Katrin Rettig1, Hasan Nuzha1, Juergen Braun2, Ingolf Sack1
1Dept. of Radiology, Charite - University Medicine, Berlin, Germany; 2Inst. of Medical Informatics, Charite - University Medicine, Berlin, Germany
In this study the quadriceps femoris muscles of four volunteers were examined in relaxation and in contraction by multifrequency MR elastography. The rheological springpot model was used for calculating viscoelastic parameters by fitting its dispersion relations to the measured values of the complex shear modulus. Both parameters of the springpot model, α and μ, revealed higher values in the contracted muscle than in the relaxed muscle. The correlation of the α-parameter with the condition of the muscle indicates that muscle contraction causes a structural reordering of tissue building blocks.