METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR MODELING DIFFUSION-WEIGHTED MR DATA ACQUIRED AT MULTIPLE NON-ZERO B-VALUES

摘要

Methods and apparatus for characterizing biological micro structure in a voxel based, at least in part, on a set of diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) data. A multi-compartment parametric model is used to predict a diffusion signal for the voxel using information from the set of diffusion-weighted MR data. Predicting the diffusion signal comprises determining, based on the set of diffusion-weighted MR data, a first set of parameters describing isotropic diffusion in a first compartment of the multi-compartment model and a second set of parameters describing anisotropic diffusion due to the presence of at least one white matter fascicle in a second compartment of the multi-compartment model. At least one first dataset of the set of diffusion-weighted MR data is associated with a first non-zero b-value and at least one second dataset of the set of diffusion-weighted MR data is associated with a second non-zero b-value different than the first non-zero b-value.