Quantifying microscopic anisotropy in the human heart in vivo using ultra-strong gradients

Motivation: Tensor-valued diffusion encoding has been shown to provide more information on tissue microstructure than conventional diffusion weighting/tensor imaging. Goal(s): Quantifying microscopic anisotropy, isotropic and anisotropic kurtosis in a human heart in vivo with a TE commonly used for DTI. Approach: We used strong gradients ($$$\mathrm{G_{max}=300\,mT/m}$$$) in combination with linear, planar, and spherical tensor encoding with up to second-order motion compensation to achieve $$$\mathrm{b_{max} = 1500\,s/mm^2}$$$ with a TE of 74 ms. Results: Estimated diffusion metrics matched the values reported in the literature while a shorter echo time was achieved due to the strong gradients used resulting in increased SNR and therefore image quality. Impact: We implemented tensor-valued diffusion encoding with ultra-strong gradients for in vivo cardiac diffusion MRI in humans. This allows us to quantify microscopic anisotropy and kurtosis.