title: Sensitivity of diffusion weighted steady state free precession to anisotropic diffusion.
abstract: Diffusion-weighted steady-state free precession (DW-SSFP) accumulates signal from multiple echoes over several TRs yielding a strong sensitivity to diffusion with short gradient durations and imaging times. Although the DW-SSFP signal is well characterized for isotropic, Gaussian diffusion, it is unclear how the DW-SSFP signal propagates in inhomogeneous media such as brain tissue. This article presents a more general analytical expression for the DW-SSFP signal which accommodates Gaussian and non-Gaussian spin displacement probability density functions. This new framework for calculating the DW-SSFP signal is used to investigate signal behavior for a single fiber, crossing fibers, and reflective barriers. DW-SSFP measurements in the corpus callosum of a fixed brain are shown to be in good agreement with theoretical predictions. Further measurements in fixed brain tissue also demonstrate that 3D DW-SSFP out-performs 3D diffusion weighted spin echo in both SNR and CNR efficiency providing a compelling example of its potential to be used for high resolution diffusion tensor imaging.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Neurology, Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom. jmcnab@fmrib.ox.ac.uk
authors.forename: Jennifer A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: McNab
authors.forename: Karla L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Miller
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D016880:Anisotropy; D003337:Corpus Callosum / Q000166:cytology*; D038524:Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D008297:Male; D009413:Nerve Fibers, Myelinated / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity