In vivo diffusion MRI of the human heart using a 300 mT/m gradient system

Purpose: This work reports for the first time on the implementation and application of cardiac diffusion-weighted MRI on a Connectom MR scanner with a maximum gradient strength of 300 mT/m. It evaluates the benefits of the increased gradient performance for the investigation of the myocardial microstructure. Methods: Cardiac diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) experiments were performed on 10 healthy volunteers using a spin-echo sequence with up to second- and third-order motion compensation ((Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.)) and (Formula presented.), and 1000 (Formula presented.) (twice the (Formula presented.) commonly used on clinical scanners). Mean diffusivity (MD), fractional anisotropy (FA), helix angle (HA), and secondary eigenvector angle (E2A) were calculated for b = [100, 450] (Formula presented.) and b = [100, 1000] (Formula presented.) for both (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.). Results: The MD values with (Formula presented.) are slightly higher than with (Formula presented.) with (Formula presented.) for (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.) for (Formula presented.). A reduction in MD is observed by increasing the (Formula presented.) from 450 to 1000 (Formula presented.) ((Formula presented.) for (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.) for (Formula presented.)). The difference between FA, E2A, and HA was not significant in different schemes ((Formula presented.)). Conclusion: This work demonstrates cardiac DWI in vivo with higher b-value and higher order of motion compensated diffusion gradient waveforms than is commonly used. Increasing the motion compensation order from (Formula presented.) to (Formula presented.) and the maximum b-value from 450 to 1000 (Formula presented.) affected the MD values but FA and the angular metrics (HA and E2A) remained unchanged. Our work paves the way for cardiac DWI on the next-generation MR scanners with high-performance gradient systems.