Mohr diagram representation of anisotropic diffusion tensor in MRI

Abstract

With current approaches, it is difficult to visually comprehend the complete information contained in a diffusion tensor (DT) measured from a microscopically heterogeneous biological tissue. Therefore, in this work the Mohr diagram is introduced to graphically display the key aspects of DTs and to interpret the underlying anisotropy, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Specifically, the mathematical basis for the construction of the Mohr diagram from the elements of DTs is described, the merits of the approach are illustrated with examples of DTs reported for various biological tissues, and the results are discussed in the context of relating the diffusion anisotropy to the tissue structures. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.