A generalized magic angle effect model for better characterizing anisotropic T2W signals of human knee femoral cartilage

Collagen fibril microstructural distributions in articular cartilage are extremely complex. The simplistic two halves radially segmented cartilage in clinical T2W sagittal knee images may not truly represent histologically defined deep and superficial zones. Furthermore, the normal to femoral cartilage surface varies considerably within imaging slices from the lateral to medial side of knee. Consequently, the standard magic angle effect (MAE) functions become inadequate for characterizing the observed anisotropic T2W signals in knee cartilage. Thus, a generalized MAE model is presented for better quantifying anisotropic T2W signals in the clinical studies of human knee articular cartilage.