Purpose To establish the correspondence between the two histologically observable and diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTMRI) measurements of myolaminae orientation for the first time and show that single myolaminar orientations observed in local histology may result from histological artifact. Materials and Methods DTMRI was performed on six sheep left ventricles (LV), then corresponding direct histological transmural measurements were made within the antero-basal and lateral-equatorial LV. Secondary and tertiary eigenvectors of the diffusion tensor were compared to each of the two locally observable sheet orientations from histology. Diffusion tensor invariants were calculated to compare differences in microstructural diffusive properties between histological locations with one observable sheet population and two observable sheet populations. Results Mean difference ± one standard deviation between DTMRI and histology measured sheet angles was 8° ± 27°. Diffusion tensor invariants showed no significant differences between histological locations with one observable sheet population and locations with two observable sheet populations. Conclusion DTMRI measurements of myolaminae orientations derived from the secondary and tertiary eigenvectors correspond to each of the two local myolaminae orientations observed in histology. Two local sheet populations may exist throughout LV myocardium and one local sheet population observed in histology may be a result of preparation artifact.

Introduction: Computational models of the heart increasingly require detailed microstructural information to capture the impact of tissue remodeling on cardiac electromechanics in, for example, hearts with myocardial infarctions. Myocardial infarctions are surrounded by the infarct border zone (BZ), which is a site of electromechanical property transition. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an emerging method for characterizing microstructural remodeling and focal myocardial infarcts and the BZ can be identified with late gadolinium enhanced (LGE) MRI. Microstructural remodeling within the BZ, however, remains poorly characterized by MRI due, in part, to the fact that LGE and DT-MRI are not always available for the same heart. Diffusion tensor MRI (DT-MRI) can evaluate microstructural remodeling by quantifying the DT apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC, increased with decreased cellularity), fractional anisotropy (FA, decreased with increased fibrosis), and tissue mode (decreased with increased fiber disarray). The purpose of this work was to use LGE MRI in post-infarct porcine hearts (N = 7) to segment remote, BZ, and infarcted myocardium, thereby providing a basis to quantify microstructural remodeling in the BZ and infarcted regions using co-registered DT-MRI.Methods: Chronic porcine infarcts were created by balloon occlusion of the LCx. 6–8 weeks post-infarction, MRI contrast was administered, and the heart was potassium arrested, excised, and imaged with LGE MRI (0.33 × 0.33 × 0.33 mm) and co-registered DT-MRI (1 × 1 × 3 mm). Myocardium was segmented as remote, BZ, or infarct by LGE signal intensity thresholds. DT invariants were used to evaluate microstructural remodeling by quantifying ADC, FA, and tissue mode.Results: The BZ significantly remodeled compared to both infarct and remote myocardium. BZ demonstrated a significant decrease in cellularity (increased ADC), significant decrease in tissue organization (decreased FA), and a significant increase in fiber disarray (decreased tissue mode) relative to remote myocardium (all p < 0.05). Microstructural remodeling in the infarct was similar, but significantly larger in magnitude (all p < 0.05).Conclusion: DT-MRI can identify regions of significant microstructural remodeling in the BZ that are distinct from both remote and infarcted myocardium.

Purpose Various methods exist for interpolating diffusion tensor fields, but none of them linearly interpolate tensor shape attributes. Linear interpolation is expected not to introduce spurious changes in tensor shape. Methods Herein we define a new linear invariant (LI) tensor interpolation method that linearly interpolates components of tensor shape (tensor invariants) and recapitulates the interpolated tensor from the linearly interpolated tensor invariants and the eigenvectors of a linearly interpolated tensor. The LI tensor interpolation method is compared to the Euclidean (EU), affine-invariant Riemannian (AI), log-Euclidean (LE) and geodesic-loxodrome (GL) interpolation methods using both a synthetic tensor field and three experimentally measured cardiac DT-MRI datasets. Results EU, AI, and LE introduce significant microstructural bias, which can be avoided through the use of GL or LI. Conclusion GL introduces the least microstructural bias, but LI tensor interpolation performs very similarly and at substantially reduced computational cost.

The objective of this study was to quantify microstructural remodeling in peri-infarcted and infarcted porcine myocardium using diffusion tensor MRI (DT-MRI) for the first time. High resolution ex vivo late gadolinium enhanced (LGE) MRI was used to segment the DT-MRI data into normal, peri-infarct and infarcted myocardium. LGE-MRI based segmentation produces regions with significantly different microstructural remodeling.

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