Progressive Myocardial Sheet Dysfunction from 3 to 16 Months in Duchene Muscular Dystrophy Mice (mdx) Defined by Diffusion Tensor MRI (DTI)

Ya-Jian Cheng¹, Junjie Chen², Shelton D. Caruthers², Samuel A. Wickline²

Heart muscle, the most important muscle in our body, demonstrates mysterious mechanical function during each heart beat. The heart wall generates up to 50% wall thickening with lower than 15% of fiber shortening. A laminar-like muscle structure, a.k.a. sheets, was found to contribute to such function. Here, we accessed the sheet reorientation function in the most used dystrophy model, mdx mice, with the Langendorff perfused viable hearts and mighty 11.7T diffusion tensor MRI.