Choukri Mekkaoui1, Sonia Nielles-Vallespin2, Peter Gatehouse2, Marcel P. Jackowski3, David Firmin2, David E. Sosnovik4
1Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States; 2Royal Brompton Hospital; 3University of So Paulo; 4Harvard Medical School - Massachusetts General Hospital
Supertoroidal analysis provides a novel formalism to analyze diffusion tensor MRI (DTI) data in the heart. Here, for the first time, we use supertoroids to analyze in vivo DTI datasets from normal human volunteers. We show that the volumetric nature of supertroidal-derived indices makes them extremely sensitive to changes in the diffusion eigenvalues. The orientation of the toroids (primary diffusion eigenvector) changes little as the myocardium contracts, except in the subepicardium. However, toroidal volume and curvature both decrease significantly as the myocardium contracts, reflecting a reduction in diffusion anisotropy in the myocardium during systole.