Uniaxial prestress and waveguide effects on estimates of the complex shear modulus using magnetic resonance elastography in a transverse isotropic muscle phantom and excised muscle

Abstract

Tensile prestress is inherent to the functional role of some biological tissues currently being studied using elastography, such as skeletal and cardiac muscle, arterial walls, and the cornea. Therefore, the impact of prestress coupled with waveguide effects due to small dimensions in one or more directions needs to be better understood. An experimental configuration is designed, fabricated and experimentally tested using magnetic resonance elastography (MRE). Cylindrically-shaped isotropic and transversely isotropic phantoms, as well as the excised cat soleus muscle are statically stretched along their main axis to specific prestrain levels while simultaneously conducting MRE measurements that enable synchronous motion-encoding in all three dimensions (polarization directions). In the case of the excised cat soleus, diffusion tensor imaging is also performed to enable a co-registered mapping of fiber structure. Guided by analytical models and numerical finite element simulations, experimental measurements are post-processed to obtain an estimate of the complex (viscoelastic) shear modulus as a function of prestress level and frequency of vibratory motion.