MRI-based Subject-specific Brain Strain and Stress Mapping

From niml.org
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Figure 1. Peak neural tissue bulk motion in two directions for a healthy subject measured by DENSE MR images (image from Zhong X et al. Med Phys, 2009.)

Team

Problem

Repetitive deformation of the CNS tissue occurs over 30 million cardiac cycles per year due to intracranial pressure differences caused by the pulsatile intracranial blood flow and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) motion. Alterations to these brain deformations may be an underlying factor that results in CNS disease(s) and/or symptomatology. The goal of this project is to use non-invasive displacement encoded stimulated echoes (DENSE) MRI measurements to map subject-specific brain strain and stress fields within the human brain in health and disease (Chiari malformation patients).