Time-dependent diffusion in healthy adult human thigh muscle in a clinically feasible acquisition

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Muscle fibres are larger than axons with a complex hierarchical internal structure causing a decrease in the diffusion coefficient with diffusion time. Acquisition of larger field-of-view thigh-level images is challenged by increased distortion, higher B0 inhomogeneity, incomplete fat saturation and longer acquisition times. We optimised a protocol to study the time-dependence of diffusion indices in healthy human thigh muscle in a clinically feasible scan time. MD and FA showed strong time dependence but slight disparities from previous work in the calf, possibly due to differences in the musculature of the thigh, male/female ratio, or changes in the acquisition with optimisation.