Niccolo Fiorentino1, Xiadong Zhong2, Michael Rehorn2, Fred Epstein2,3, Silvia Blemker1,2
1Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA; 2Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA; 3Radiology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA
A 3D DENSE sequence was used to image a volume of tissue in the mid-to-distal thigh during knee joint flexion. Three-dimensional displacements for the quadriceps and hamstrings muscle groups were determined in 20 transverse 5-mm slices and over 80% of the flexion motion. The mean reconstructed displacements of the hamstrings and quadriceps muscle groups were found to be 2.9 +/- 1.2 mm and -1.4 +/- 0.7 mm, respectively, which is expected from a protagonist-antagonist pair. This study demonstrates that 3D cine DENSE MRI is a feasible method for capturing the 3D deformation of skeletal muscle tissue volumes.