Atlases of Cardiac Microstructure for Computing Myocardial Strains and Stiffness

Cardiac microstructure is essential to define both microstructurally anchored measures of cardiac kinematics (e.g., strains) and cardiac mechanics (e.g., stresses and stiffness). Current advances in cardiac diffusion tensor MRI make it possible to measure cardiac microstructure in vivo, although the required time often prevents their deployment in a clinical setting. Our goal is to build an atlas based model of cardiac microstructure based on in vivo and ex vivo data that can be applied to a generic cardiac geometry, therefore enabling microstructurally anchored measures of cardiac kinematics and mechanics without the need for diffusion tensor MRI acquisitions.