Method and apparatus for diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging

A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) device comprising:

• a main magnetic field coil;
• three gradient magnetic field coils;
• a radio-frequency (RF) transmit-receive unit;
• and
• a control computer configured to operate the MRI device to collect data for measuring a diffusion tensor of a voxel by measuring T2-weighted images with a diffusion gradient applied along a plurality of axial measurement directions,
• wherein the plurality of axial measurement directions is assigned to three groups, and
• wherein a b-value is maintained constant, and a value of echo image time (TE) is varied from group-to-group of the three groups.

A computer program product, stored on a non-transitory computer readable media, comprising instructions for configuring a first computer to:

• select an orientation of a plurality of axial directions;
• form at least three groups of axial directions from the plurality of axial directions, wherein axial directions of each group of the at least three groups have a similarity of orientation relationship to three orthogonal axes;
• accept information characterizing a gradient amplifier and coil properties of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) device, a T2 value of tissue to be imaged, and a signal-to-noise ratio to be achieved;
• compute a combination of a T2 value, a b-value and a number of measurements for each group of the at least three groups so that a total number of measurements is reduced when compared with a constant value of T2 and the b-value;
• and
• transmit the computed T2 value, the computed b-value, and the at least three groups of axial directions to a second computer for controlling the operation of the MRI device.

A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) device comprising:

• a main magnetic field coil;
• three gradient magnetic field coils;
• a radio-frequency (RF) transmit-receive unit;
• and
• a control computer configured to operate the MRI device to collect data for measuring a diffusion tensor of a voxel by measuring T2-weighted images with a diffusion gradient applied along a plurality of axial measurement directions,
• wherein the plurality of axial measurement directions is assigned to three groups, and a b-value, a value of echo image time (TE), or the b-value and the value of TE is varied from group to group of the three groups,
• wherein the control computer is configured to obtain a T2-weighted image in each group of the three groups with the b-value approximately zero, and
• wherein the control computer is configured to use the T2-weighted image with the b-value of approximately zero to normalize date taken with b-values higher than zero for each voxel.