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Multidimensional diffusion MRI with spectrally modulated gradients reveals unprecedented microstructural detail

Lundell, H. ; Nilsson, M. LU ; Dyrby, T. B. ; Parker, G. J.M. ; Cristinacce, P. L.Hubbard ; Zhou, F. L. ; Topgaard, D. LU and Lasič, S. (2019) In Scientific Reports 9(1).
Abstract

Characterization of porous media is essential in a wide range of biomedical and industrial applications. Microstructural features can be probed non-invasively by diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI). However, diffusion encoding in conventional dMRI may yield similar signatures for very different microstructures, which represents a significant limitation for disentangling individual microstructural features in heterogeneous materials. To solve this problem, we propose an augmented multidimensional diffusion encoding (MDE) framework, which unlocks a novel encoding dimension to assess time-dependent diffusion specific to structures with different microscopic anisotropies. Our approach relies on spectral analysis of complex but... (More)

Characterization of porous media is essential in a wide range of biomedical and industrial applications. Microstructural features can be probed non-invasively by diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI). However, diffusion encoding in conventional dMRI may yield similar signatures for very different microstructures, which represents a significant limitation for disentangling individual microstructural features in heterogeneous materials. To solve this problem, we propose an augmented multidimensional diffusion encoding (MDE) framework, which unlocks a novel encoding dimension to assess time-dependent diffusion specific to structures with different microscopic anisotropies. Our approach relies on spectral analysis of complex but experimentally efficient MDE waveforms. Two independent contrasts to differentiate features such as cell shape and size can be generated directly by signal subtraction from only three types of measurements. Analytical calculations and simulations support our experimental observations. Proof-of-concept experiments were applied on samples with known and distinctly different microstructures. We further demonstrate substantially different contrasts in different tissue types of a post mortem brain. Our simultaneous assessment of restriction size and shape may be instrumental in studies of a wide range of porous materials, enable new insights into the microstructure of biological tissues or be of great value in diagnostics.

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author
; ; ; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Scientific Reports
volume
9
issue
1
article number
9026
publisher
Nature Publishing Group
external identifiers
  • scopus:85067826110
  • pmid:31227745
ISSN
2045-2322
DOI
10.1038/s41598-019-45235-7
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
ebfd9497-cab0-485c-908a-d48222ae3ad7
date added to LUP
2019-07-03 12:18:02
date last changed
2024-04-16 14:31:47
@article{ebfd9497-cab0-485c-908a-d48222ae3ad7,
  abstract     = {{<p>Characterization of porous media is essential in a wide range of biomedical and industrial applications. Microstructural features can be probed non-invasively by diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI). However, diffusion encoding in conventional dMRI may yield similar signatures for very different microstructures, which represents a significant limitation for disentangling individual microstructural features in heterogeneous materials. To solve this problem, we propose an augmented multidimensional diffusion encoding (MDE) framework, which unlocks a novel encoding dimension to assess time-dependent diffusion specific to structures with different microscopic anisotropies. Our approach relies on spectral analysis of complex but experimentally efficient MDE waveforms. Two independent contrasts to differentiate features such as cell shape and size can be generated directly by signal subtraction from only three types of measurements. Analytical calculations and simulations support our experimental observations. Proof-of-concept experiments were applied on samples with known and distinctly different microstructures. We further demonstrate substantially different contrasts in different tissue types of a post mortem brain. Our simultaneous assessment of restriction size and shape may be instrumental in studies of a wide range of porous materials, enable new insights into the microstructure of biological tissues or be of great value in diagnostics.</p>}},
  author       = {{Lundell, H. and Nilsson, M. and Dyrby, T. B. and Parker, G. J.M. and Cristinacce, P. L.Hubbard and Zhou, F. L. and Topgaard, D. and Lasič, S.}},
  issn         = {{2045-2322}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{06}},
  number       = {{1}},
  publisher    = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
  series       = {{Scientific Reports}},
  title        = {{Multidimensional diffusion MRI with spectrally modulated gradients reveals unprecedented microstructural detail}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45235-7}},
  doi          = {{10.1038/s41598-019-45235-7}},
  volume       = {{9}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}