Roland Müller | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

Predicting Mesoscopic Larmor Frequency Shifts in Ex Vivo Porcine Optic Nerve

Larmor frequency shifts in white matter (WM) vary with fiber orientation due to anisotropic microstructure. Since clinical voxels are significantly larger than these microscopic frequency variations, the measured signal represents a bulk average of local shifts. Accurate estimation of magnetic susceptibility therefore requires accounting for these underlying frequency distributions that exist below the imaging resolution. We evaluated whether Microstructure-informed Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping (μQSM) can predict orientation-dependent sub-voxel frequency shifts from orientationally dispersed hollow cylinders and spherical inclusions. Diffusion-weighted and multi-gradient-echo images were acquired from ex vivo pig optic nerves at multiple orientations relative to the main magnetic field using a 3T Siemens Connectom scanner. We also analyzed de-ironed optic nerves to try and separate the effects of myelin and iron on susceptibility. The estimated sub-voxel frequency shifts closely matched μQSM predictions, consistent with mesoscopic field perturbations generated by uniformly magnetized axons. De-ironing had minimal effect on the frequency shifts, indicating negligible iron contribution. μQSM accurately reproduces the orientation dependence of Larmor frequency shifts in optic nerve WM, providing new insight into their microstructural origin and supporting improved estimation of tissue magnetic susceptibility in Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping.

physics.med-ph↗

arXiv2023

Chaos and COSMOS -- Considerations on QSM methods with multiple and single orientations and effects from local anisotropy

Purpose: Field-to-susceptibility inversion in quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) is ill-posed and needs numerical stabilization through either regularization or oversampling by acquiring data at three or more object orientations. Calculation Of Susceptibility through Multiple Orientations Sampling (COSMOS) is an established oversampling approach and regarded as QSM gold standard. It achieves a well-conditioned inverse problem, requiring rotations by 0°, 60° and 120° in the yz-plane. However, this is impractical in vivo, where head rotations are typically restricted to a range of +-25°. Non-ideal sampling degrades the conditioning with residual streaking artifacts whose mitigation needs further regularization. Moreover, susceptibility anisotropy in white matter is not considered in the COSMOS model, which may introduce additional bias. The current work presents a thorough investigation of these effects in primate brain. Methods: Gradient-recalled echo (GRE) data of an entire fixed chimpanzee brain were acquired at 7 T (350 microns resolution, 10 orientations) including ideal COSMOS sampling and realistic rotations in vivo. Comparisons of the results included ideal COSMOS, in-vivo feasible acquisitions with 3-8 orientations and single-orientation iLSQR QSM. Results: In-vivo feasible and optimal COSMOS yielded high-quality susceptibility maps with increased SNR resulting from averaging multiple acquisitions. COSMOS reconstructions from non-ideal rotations about a single axis required additional L2-regularization to mitigate residual streaking artifacts. Conclusion: In view of unconsidered anisotropy effects, added complexity of the reconstruction, and the general challenge of multi-orientation acquisitions, advantages of sub-optimal COSMOS schemes over regularized single-orientation QSM appear limited in in-vivo settings.

physics.med-ph↗