Reconstruction of 3-D Fabric Structure & Fiber Nets in Skeletal Muscle Via In Vivo DTI

Armen Alex Gharibans¹, Curtis Laurence Johnson¹, Danchin Daniel Chen¹, John G. Georgiadis¹

Driven by the hypothesis that the transverse eigenvalue asymmetry in diffusion tensor imaging of skeletal muscle is correlated with gross muscle organization, we reconstruct and superimpose the tracts corresponding to the primary and secondary eigenvectors from DTI axial slices of the calf and thigh of a group of healthy, lean volunteers at rest. The reconstruction of organized nets consisting of crossing primary and secondary tracts provides quantitative evidence of the presence of a woven fabric in the middle part of the gastrocnemius and vastus lateralis muscles.