DIFFUSION MRI FOR EXTRACTING AT LEAST ONE DIFFUSION DIRECTION IN A BODY

摘要

The invention concerns a method to extract a diffusion direction from DW- MR signals, in which a magnetic field gradient qi is applied to a body part, a magnetic resonance signal Si is measured and a diffusion direction µj is determined. The invention is characterized in that for a predetermined positive number m of diffusion direction(s) µj, the signals Si are linked to the probability density function of the random vector X of water molecules displacements represented as a mixture of m probability density functions pxj of random vectors Xj characterizing the diffusion along µj, the Xj being decomposed into a first component modelling directional variability of the water molecules displacements with µj as mean direction, and into a second component modelling the length variability of the water molecules displacements along µj.