System for processing images to detect properties of skeletal muscle

A data processing apparatus having one or more processors comprising:

• circuitry to receive a time series of Magnetic Resonance, MR, images representing a slice of a body part;
• circuitry to analyze the time series of images to identify one or more signal voids in one or more images of the series, a signal void being a localized region of signal attenuation;
• circuitry to correlate the identified signal voids with candidate motor units of skeletal muscle, wherein the correlation comprises performing a comparison of at least one characteristic of the identified signal voids in the images with a control data set of MR images characterizing inherent properties of signal voids corresponding to motor units of skeletal muscle;
• and
• circuitry to analyze properties of candidate motor units validated via the comparison as confirmed motor units and determine at least one of:
• a firing frequency of at least one of the confirmed motor units, a size of at least one of the confirmed motor units, a number of confirmed motor units in a given image area or a shape of at least one of the confirmed motor units.

A method of processing images to determine one or more properties of skeletal muscle, the method comprising:

• receiving a time series of Magnetic Resonance, MR, images representing a slice of a body part;
• analyzing the time series of images to identify one or more signal voids in one or more images of the series, a signal void being a localized region of signal attenuation;
• correlating the identified signal voids with candidate motor units of skeletal muscle, wherein the correlation comprises performing a comparison of at least one characteristic of the identified signal voids in the images with a control data set of MR images to validate at least a subset of the candidate motor units as confirmed motor units;
• and
• analyzing properties of the confirmed motor units to determine at least one of:
• a firing frequency of at least one of the confirmed motor units, a size of at least one of the confirmed motor units, a number of confirmed motor units in a given image area or a shape of at least one of the confirmed motor units.