Nonparametric pore size distribution using d-PFG: comparison to s-PFG and migration to MRI

Here we present the successful translation of a pore size distribution (PSD) estimation method from NMR to MRI. This approach is validated using a well-characterized MRI phantom consisting of stacked glass capillary arrays (GCA) having different diameters. By employing a double pulsed-field gradient (d-PFG) MRI sequence, this method overcomes several important theoretical and experimental limitations of previous single-PFG (s-PFG) based MRI methods by allowing the relative diffusion gradients' direction to vary. This feature adds an essential second dimension in the parameters space, which can potentially improve the reliability and stability of the PSD estimation. To infer PSDs from the MRI data in each voxel an inverse linear problem is solved in conjunction with the multiple correlation function (MCF) framework, which can account for arbitrary experimental parameters (e.g., long diffusion pulses). This scheme makes no a priori assumptions about the functional form of the underlying PSD. Creative use of region of interest (ROI) analysis allows us to create different underlying PSDs using the same GCA MRI phantom. We show that an s-PFG experiment on the GCA phantom fails to accurately reconstruct the size distribution, thus demonstrating the superiority of the d-PFG experiment. In addition, signal simulations corrupted by different noise levels were used to generate continuous and complex PSDs, which were then successfully reconstructed. Finally, owing to the reduced q- or b- values required to measure microscopic PSDs via d-PFG MRI, this method will be better suited to biomedical and clinical applications, in which gradient strength of scanners is limited.