Comparative Performance Analysis of an Open Source Motion-Compensated Cardiac Diffusion Sequence Across Different MRI...

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Biophysics
• Cardiovascular MRI

Background:

• Cardiac diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is crucial for assessing myocardial microstructure.
• Standardized, open-source frameworks are needed to facilitate DTI research and clinical translation.
• Investigating hardware variability is essential for robust DTI protocol development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To validate an open-source cardiac DTI sequence framework.
• To evaluate the performance of motion-compensated diffusion sequences.
• To identify and quantify hardware-related performance differences in cardiac DTI.

Main Methods:

• Compiled and applied three second-order motion-compensated Pulseq sequence files.
• Imaged five healthy volunteers across multiple MRI systems.
• Performed Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) and Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) analysis.

Main Results:

• The Pulseq framework successfully generated cardiac DTI data suitable for analysis.
• Significant performance variations were observed across different MRI systems.
• Relative SNR differences reached up to 80% between gradient systems and 42% between scanners.

Conclusions:

• The open-source framework provides an accessible entry point for cardiac DTI.
• Hardware characteristics significantly influence cardiac DTI performance and SNR.
• Further research is warranted to understand and mitigate hardware-specific impacts on DTI acquisition.