Abstract #0281

In Vivo Characterization of Myocardial Microstructure in Normal & Infarcted Hearts using the Supertoroidal Model

Choukri Mekkaoui¹, Shuning Huang¹, Guangping Dai¹, Timothy G. Reese¹, Marcel P. Jackowski², David Sosnovik³

¹Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Martinos Center For Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, MA, USA; ²Computer Science, University of So Paulo, Institute of Mathematics & Statistics, So Paulo, Brazil; ³Cardiology, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Martinos Center For Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, MA, USA

The supertoroid-based representation of cardiac diffusion tensor MRI (DT-MRI) has previously been shown to enhance the three-dimensional perception of myocardial tissue structure and organization. In this work, the quantification of DT-MRI data using the supertoroidal model is performed in vivo for the first time. The toroidal indices TV and TC revealed that diffusivity and anisotropy values are homogeneous and highly reproducible in the myocardium in vivo. Changes in diffusivity in infarcted myocardium are detected with greater sensitivity with TV than MD. The supertoroidal formalism thus holds significant promise for the analysis of myocardial microstructure with DT-MRI.