Nerve Microstructure: Modeling of the Diffusion MR Signal in Calibrated Model Systems and Nerves

Darya Morozov¹, Leah Bar², Nir Sochen², Yoram Cohen¹

Diffusion NMR is a powerful tool for gleaning microstructural information on opaque systems. We demonstrate that our modeling of s-PFG MR experiments, performed on a series of phantoms of increasing complexity where the ground truth is known a priori, can, without assuming the number of compartments, identify the number of restricted compartments, detect their sizes and determine their relative populations. In addition the model can identify free diffusion when presents in addition to the restricted compartments. This model was then used to study diffusion in excised nerves, showing that it provides a mean to obtain detailed microstructural information in nerves.