FlowSim: a blood flow simulator for histology-informed diffusion MRI micro-vasculature mapping in cancer
Motivation: Open-source software for simulating diffusion MRI (dMRI) signals arising from micro-vascular perfusion is needed to inform the development of new techniques for non-invasive vascular characterization. Goal(s): To present FlowSim, a micro-vasculature perfusion dMRI signal simulator, demonstrating its utility for in vivo vascular property estimation. Approach: FlowSim estimates blood velocities in all segments of custom vascular networks. These are used to calculate spin trajectories in the presence of arbitrary diffusion-encoding gradients. Results: FlowSim synthesizes dMRI signals from realistic vascular networks reconstructed from histology. These can be used to inform the estimation of capillary blood velocity distributions in vivo, showcased herein in cancer. Impact: We present FlowSim, a simulator of diffusion MRI (dMRI) signals arising from micro-vasculature perfusion. FlowSim synthesizes dMRI signals from realistic vascular networks reconstructed from histology, and informs the estimation of new microvasculature metrics in vivo, needed, for example, in cancer.
Authors
- María Vieito (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7531-343X)
- Kinga Bernatowicz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9166-1709)
- Núria Rosón (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6751-7491)
- Raquel Pérez-López (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9176-0130)
- Rodrigo Almeida Toledo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3070-6795)
- Francesco Grussu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0945-3909)
- Manuel Escobar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3794-2224)
- Roser Sala‐Llonch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3576-0475)
- Garazi Serna (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2666-0982)
- Sara Simonetti (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2406-030X)
- Elena Garralda (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4412-7842)
- Marco Palombo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4892-7967)
- Paolo Giovanni Nuciforo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1380-0990)
- Athanasios Grigoriou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1826-8040)
- Anna Voronova (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-9600-0436)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Proceedings on CD-ROM - International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. Scientific Meeting and Exhibition/Proceedings of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Scientific Meeting and Exhibition
- Published
- 2024-11-26
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.58530/2024/0586
- Primary Topic
- MRI in cancer diagnosis
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00