Tensor-valued encoding holds great promise in enhancing specificity in myocardial characterisation relative to diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). However, its application in the heart is challenging due to motion and limited SNR. In this work, we employed optimized diffusion encoding waveforms with up to 2nd order motion compensation and compensation for concomitant gradient effects to demonstrate the first in vivo application of q-space trajectory imaging (QTI) in the human heart. Baseline myocardial measurements of microscopic fractional anisotropy, as well as isotropic and anisotropic mean kurtosis are reported for the first time in the heart.
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