Abstract
Since its introduction in the mid-1980s, diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which measures the random motion of water molecules in tissues, revealing their microarchitecture, has become a pillar of modern neuroimaging. Its main clinical domain has been the diagnosis of acute brain stroke and neurogical disorders, but it is also used in the body for the detection and management of cancer lesions. It can also produce stunning maps of white matter tracks in the brain, with the potential to aid in the understanding of some psychiatric disorders. However, in order to exploit fully the potential of this method, a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that govern the diffusion of water in tissues is needed.
Highlights
We will discuss the main applications and the outstanding issues remaining in the field in more detail below
The idea was to use Einstein’s equation to model diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) signals as if water diffusion was Gaussian but to describe, instead, the results as an apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), to emphasize that results differ from a free diffusion coefficient
Around 1990, Michael Moseley at the University of California at San Francisco made an unexpected but crucial discovery [16]: water diffusion dropped significantly (30%–50%) during the very early phase of acute brain ischemia in cats. This finding tremendously boosted diffusion MRI, still essentially a pure research tool, by attracting clinicians and convincing manufacturers to implement it on their systems
Summary
Since its introduction in the mid-1980s, diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which measures the random motion of water molecules in tissues, revealing their microarchitecture, has become a pillar of modern neuroimaging. Its main clinical domain has been the diagnosis of acute brain stroke and neurogical disorders, but it is used in the body for the detection and management of cancer lesions. It can produce stunning maps of white matter tracks in the brain, with the potential to aid in the understanding of some psychiatric disorders.
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