Patent ID: 8290565

Claim:
A method for producing, with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, an image indicating an integrity of a tissue interface in a subject, the method comprising the steps of: a) applying an oscillatory stress to the subject to impart a relative shearing motion between tissues at opposing sides of a common tissue interface including a tissue slip interface; b) acquiring nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) signals from a region-of-interest including the tissue slip interface with the MRI system, while applying a motion encoding gradient along the direction of the imparted relative shearing motion to sensitize the acquired NMR signals to the relative shearing motion at the tissue slip interface; c) reconstructing at least one magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) image from the acquired NMR signals; d) analyzing the at least one reconstructed MRE image to determine a loss of signal intensity due to intra-voxel phase dispersion (IVPD) resulting from the imparted relative shearing motion at the tissue slip interface; and e) producing, from the determined loss of signal intensity, an image indicative of the mechanical connectivity between the tissues at opposing sides of the common tissue slip interface.