In vivo demonstration of microscopic anisotropy in the human kidney using multidimensional diffusion MRI

PURPOSE: To demonstrate the feasibility of multidimensional diffusion MRI to probe and quantify microscopic fractional anisotropy (μFA) in human kidneys in vivo. METHODS: Linear tensor encoded (LTE) and spherical tensor encoded (STE) renal diffusion MRI scans were performed in 10 healthy volunteers. Respiratory triggering and image registration were used to minimize motion artefacts during the acquisition. Kidney cortex–medulla were semi-automatically segmented based on fractional anisotropy (FA) values. A model-free analysis of LTE and STE signal dependence on b-value in the renal cortex and medulla was performed. Subsequently, μFA was estimated using a single-shell approach. Finally, a comparison of conventional FA and μFA is shown. RESULTS: The hallmark effect of μFA (divergence of LTE and STE signal with increasing b-value) was observed in all subjects. A statistically significant difference between LTE and STE signal was found in the cortex and medulla, starting from b = 750 s/mm(2) and b = 500 s/mm(2), respectively. This difference was maximal at the highest b-value sampled (b = 1000 s/mm(2)) which suggests that relatively high b-values are required for μFA mapping in the kidney compared to conventional FA. Cortical and medullary μFA were, respectively, 0.53 ± 0.09 and 0.65 ± 0.05, both respectively higher than conventional FA (0.19 ± 0.02 and 0.40 ± 0.02). CONCLUSION: The feasibility of combining LTE and STE diffusion MRI to probe and quantify μFA in human kidneys is demonstrated for the first time. By doing so, we show that novel microstructure information—not accessible by conventional diffusion encoding—can be probed by multidimensional diffusion MRI. We also identify relevant technical limitations that warrant further development of the technique for body MRI.