Chronic muscle atrophy can be induced by limb suspension and is characterized by a loss of muscle mass and force. However, there could also be changes to the connective tissue volume that may contribute to the loss of muscle function. We studied the changes in connective tissue volume in a model of chronic atrophy induced by Unilateral limb suspension (ULLS) using ultralow TE sequences. We integrated an artifact correction algorithm to a 3D fuzzy segmentation algorithm to automatically segment the connective tissue from dual echo UTEs images corrupted by artifacts. Percent connective tissue increased post-ULLS but not the absolute values.
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