Combined diffusion‐relaxometry microstructure imaging: Current status and future prospects

Microstructure imaging seeks to noninvasively measure and map microscopic tissue features by pairing mathematical modeling with tailored MRI protocols. This article reviews an emerging paradigm that has the potential to provide a more detailed assessment of tissue microstructure—combined diffusion‐relaxometry imaging. Combined diffusion‐relaxometry acquisitions vary multiple MR contrast encodings—such as b‐value, gradient direction, inversion time, and echo time—in a multidimensional acquisition space. When paired with suitable analysis techniques, this enables quantification of correlations and coupling between multiple MR parameters—such as diffusivity, T1 , T2 , and T2∗ . This opens the possibility of disentangling multiple tissue compartments (within voxels) that are indistinguishable with single‐contrast scans, enabling a new generation of microstructural maps with improved biological sensitivity and specificity.

• Publication year

  2021

• Venue

  Magnetic Resonance in Medicine

• Publication date

  2021-08-19

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Engineering

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1002/mrm.28963PMID 34411331PMCID 8568657
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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