Construction of a Fiber Atlas of the Murine Heart

Stelios Angeli¹, Nicholas Befera², Gary Cofer², G. Allan Johnson², Christakis Constantinides¹

The unique myocardial architecture, comprised of oriented laminar sheets and helical spiral tracts of fibers, accounts for its efficient contractile and torsional mechanical function. The inherent structural-functional associations of the heart also underline the potential significance of fiber tractography in remodeling or cellular disarray, following early, or late pathological states. Diffusion MRI tractography can provide 3-dimensional (3D) mapping of the myofiber structure . This study employs 3D, microscopic, spin-echo, diffusion-weighted MRI to construct a fiber atlas of the ex-vivo, fixed, C57BL/6 murine heart.