Yin Wu1, 2, Chao Zou1, 2, Wei Liu1, 2, Wei-Qi Liao1, 2, Ed X. Wu3, 4
1Paul C. Lauterbur Research Center for Biomedical Imaging, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China; 2Key Lab of Health Informatics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China; 3Laboratory of Biomedical Imaging and Signal Processing, The University of Hong Kong, Pukfulam, Hong Kong; 4Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pukfulam, Hong Kong
The free Gaussian process of water diffusion assumed in conventional DTI was found to not apply with increase of diffusion strength. In this study, effect of b-value on detecting myocardial structural alteration was assessed in infarcted rabbit models. Non-monoexponential diffusion manner was confirmed in both infarct and control groups. FA and radial diffusivity were found to alter significantly in infarct and/or adjacent regions, and the sensitivity to detect their statistical differences among all the groups were b-value dependent with the greatest total number of statistical significances occurred at b-values of 750 to 2000 s/mm2. The study demonstrated the important effect of diffusion strength on DTI index characterization and emphasized the necessity of optimizing b-value for better monitoring and detecting myocardial structural degradation.