Investigating time-independent and time-dependent diffusion phenomena using steady-state diffusion MRI.

ABSTRACT: Diffusion MRI is a leading method to non-invasively characterise brain tissue microstructure across multiple domains and scales. Diffusion-weighted steady-state free precession (DW-SSFP) is an established imaging sequence for post-mortem MRI, addressing the challenging imaging environment of fixed tissue with short T₂ and low diffusivities. However, a current limitation of DW-SSFP is signal interpretation: it is not clear what diffusion 'regime' the sequence probes and therefore its potential to characterise tissue microstructure. Building on Extended Phase Graphs (EPG), I establish two alternative representations of the DW-SSFP signal in terms of (1) conventional b-values (time-independent diffusion) and (2) encoding power-spectra (time-dependent diffusion). The proposed repres

SUBMITTER: Tendler BC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11775203 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature