Effect of b-value on DTI sensitivity in revealing myocardial structure degradation in rabbit models with acute myocardium infarction

Abstract

The free Gaussian process of water diffusion assumed in conventional DTI was found to not apply with increase of diffusion strength. In this study, effect of b-value on detecting myocardial structural alteration was assessed in infarcted rabbit models. Non-monoexponential diffusion manner was confirmed in both infarct and control groups. FA and radial diffusivity were found to alter significantly in infarct and/or adjacent regions, and the sensitivity to detect their statistical differences among all the groups were b-value dependent with the greatest total number of statistical significances occurred at b-values of 750 to 2000 s/mm2. The study demonstrated the important effect of diffusion strength on DTI index characterization and emphasized the necessity of optimizing b-value for better monitoring and detecting myocardial structural degradation.