Myofiber strain in healthy humans using DENSE and cDTI. Issue 1 (22nd February 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Moulin, Kévin; Croisille, Pierre; Viallon, Magalie; Verzhbinsky, Ilya A.; Perotti, Luigi E.; Ennis, Daniel B.
• Is Part Of: Magnetic resonance in medicine. Volume 86:Issue 1(2021)
• Page Start: 277
• Page End: 292
• Publication Date: 2021-02-22
• Subjects: cDTI -- DENSE -- myofiber strain; Nuclear magnetic resonance -- Periodicals; Electron paramagnetic resonance -- Periodicals; 616.07548
• DOI: 10.1002/mrm.28724
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0740-3194

Abstract

Abstract: Purpose: Myofiber strain, Eff, is a mechanistically relevant metric of cardiac cell shortening and is expected to be spatially uniform in healthy populations, making it a prime candidate for the evaluation of local cardiomyocyte contractility. In this study, a new, efficient pipeline was proposed to combine microstructural cDTI and functional DENSE data in order to estimate Eff in vivo. Methods: Thirty healthy volunteers were scanned with three long‐axis (LA) and three short‐axis (SA) DENSE slices using 2D displacement encoding and one SA slice of cDTI. The total acquisition time was 11 minutes ± 3 minutes across volunteers. The pipeline first generates 3D SA displacements from all DENSE slices which are then combined with cDTI data to generate a cine of myofiber orientations and compute Eff . The precision of the post‐processing pipeline was assessed using a computational phantom study. Transmural myofiber strain was compared to circumferential strain, Ecc, in healthy volunteers using a Wilcoxon sign rank test. Results: In vivo, computed Eff was found uniform transmurally compared to Ecc (−0.14[−0.15, −0.12] vs −0.18 [−0.20, −0.16], P < .001, −0.14 [−0.16, −0.12] vs −0.16 [−0.17, −0.13], P < .001 and −0.14 [−0.16, −0.12] vs Ecc_C = −0.14 [−0.15, −0.11], P = .002, Eff_C vs Ecc_C in the endo, mid, and epi layers, respectively). Conclusion: We demonstrate that it is possible to measure in vivo myofiber strain in a healthy human population in 10 minutes per subject. Myofiber strain was observed to be spatially uniform in healthy volunteers making it a potential biomarker for the evaluation of local cardiomyocyte contractility in assessing cardiovascular dysfunction.