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Resolution limit of cylinder diameter estimation by diffusion MRI: The impact of gradient waveform and orientation dispersion

Nilsson, M; Lasič, S; Drobnjak, I; Topgaard, D; Westin, C-F; (2017) Resolution limit of cylinder diameter estimation by diffusion MRI: The impact of gradient waveform and orientation dispersion. NMR in Biomedicine , 30 (7) , Article e3711. 10.1002/nbm.3711. Green open access

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Abstract

Diffusion MRI has been proposed as a non-invasive technique for axonal diameter mapping. However, accurate estimation of small diameters requires strong gradients, which is a challenge for the transition of the technique from preclinical to clinical MRI scanners, since these have weaker gradients. In this work, we develop a framework to estimate the lower bound for accurate diameter estimation, which we refer to as the resolution limit. We analyse only the contribution from the intra-axonal space and assume that axons can be represented by impermeable cylinders. To address the growing interest in using techniques for diffusion encoding that go beyond the conventional single diffusion encoding (SDE) sequence, we present a generalised analysis capable of predicting the resolution limit regardless of the gradient waveform. Using this framework, waveforms were optimised to minimise the resolution limit. The results show that, for parallel cylinders, the SDE experiment is optimal in terms of yielding the lowest possible resolution limit. In the presence of orientation dispersion, diffusion encoding sequences with square-wave oscillating gradients were optimal. The resolution limit for standard clinical MRI scanners (maximum gradient strength 60-80 mT/m) was found to be between 4 and 8 μm, depending on the noise levels and the level of orientation dispersion. For scanners with a maximum gradient strength of 300 mT/m, the limit was reduced to between 2 and 5 μm.

Type: Article
Title: Resolution limit of cylinder diameter estimation by diffusion MRI: The impact of gradient waveform and orientation dispersion
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1002/nbm.3711
Publisher version: http://doi.org/10.1002/nbm.3711
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © 2017 The Authors. NMR in Biomedicine Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
Keywords: Axon diameter, diffusion imaging, double diffusion encoding, microstructure, oscillating diffusion encoding, q-trajectory encoding, resolution limit, single diffusion encoding
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1551337
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