Scanner-efficient diffusion tensor imaging of human cardiac microstructure using the fast composite splitting reconstruction algorithm

Background Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has been shown [1] to be extremely promising for characterizing the hierarchical microstructure of myocardium. DTI studies are hampered by lengthy acquisition times, needed for high spatial resolution and/or improved SNR. Compressed sensing (CS) algorithms recover data from under-sampled acquisitions, and have been used [2] to reduce scan time in MRI. The fast composite splitting algorithm (FCSA) [3] impressively outperforms other classical CS reconstruction methods by providing more accurate results in less CPU time. In this study, we investigate the feasibility of applying FCSA CS to DTI of an excised human heart. To our knowledge, this is the first time CS reconstruction has been applied to DTI of a human heart.