Validation of Continuously Tagged MRI for the Measurement of Dynamic 3D Skeletal Muscle Tissue Deformation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel continuous 3D tagged MRI method for measuring dynamic skeletal muscle deformation, validated on phantom and in-vivo experiments, with an automatic post-processing framework for accurate deformation analysis.

Contribution

It presents a new continuous 3D tagged MRI technique with an automatic analysis pipeline for dynamic tissue deformation measurement, requiring only three motion cycles.

Findings

Validated on silicone gel phantom with ~20 mm indentation depth.

Successfully applied in vivo to measure biceps muscle deformation.

Achieved continuous sampling at 3.3-3.6 Hz for dynamic analysis.

Abstract

A SPAMM tagged MRI methodology is presented allowing continuous (3.3-3.6 Hz) sampling of 3D dynamic soft tissue deformation using non-segmented 3D acquisitions. The 3D deformation is reconstructed by the combination of 3 mutually orthogonal tagging directions, thus requiring only 3 repeated motion cycles. In addition a fully automatic post-processing framework is presented employing Gabor scale-space and filter-bank analysis for tag extrema segmentation and triangulated surface fitting aided by Gabor filter bank derived surface normals. Deformation is derived following tracking of tag surface triplet triangle intersections. The dynamic deformation measurements were validated using indentation tests (~20 mm deep at 12 mm/s) on a silicone gel soft tissue phantom containing contrasting markers which provide a reference measure of deformation. In addition, the techniques were evaluated in-vivo for dynamic skeletal muscle tissue deformation measurement during indentation of the biceps region of the upper arm in a volunteer.