Strategies for Assessing Diffusion Anisotropy on the Basis of Magnetic Resonance Images: Comparison of Systematic Errors

Diffusion weighted imaging uses the signal loss associated with the random thermal motion of water molecules in the presence of magnetic field gradients to derive a number of parameters that reflect the translational mobility of the water molecules in tissues. With a suitable experimental set up, it is possible to calculate all the elements of the local diffusion tensor (DT) and derived parameters describing the behavior of the water molecules in each voxel. One of the emerging applications of the information obtained is an interpretation of the diffusion anisotropy in terms of the architecture of the underlying tissue. These interpretations can only be made provided the experimental data which are sufficiently accurate. However, the DT results are susceptible to two systematic error sources: On one hand, the presence of signal noise can lead to artificial divergence of the diffusivities. In contrast, the use of a simplified model for the interaction of the protons with the diffusion weighting and imaging field gradients (b matrix calculation), common in the clinical setting, also leads to deviation in the derived diffusion characteristics. In this paper, we study the importance of these two sources of error on the basis of experimental data obtained on a clinical magnetic resonance imaging system for an isotropic phantom using a state of the art single-shot echo planar imaging sequence. Our results show that optimal diffusion imaging require combining a correct calculation of the b-matrix and a sufficiently large signal to noise ratio.