Capturing complexity of the diffusion-weighted MR signal decay.

ABSTRACT: Diffusion-weighted MRI (dMRI) is a key component of clinical radiology. When analyzing diffusion-weighted images, radiologists often seek to infer microscopic tissue structure through measurements of the diffusion coefficient, D₀ (mm²/s). This multi-scale problem is framed by the creation of diffusion models of signal decay based on physical laws, histological structure, and biophysical constraints. The purpose of this paper is to simplify the model building process by focusing on the observed decay in the effective diffusion coefficient as a function of diffusion weighting (b-value), D(b), that is often observed in complex biological tissues. We call this approach the varying diffusion curvature (VDC) model. Since this is a heuristic model, the exact functional form

SUBMITTER: Magin RL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6348133 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature