Patent ID: 8643369

Claim:
A method for calibration of a Magnetic Resonance-Diffusion Tensor Imaging(MR-DTI) sequence for a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner, comprising the steps of: providing an anisotropic diffusion phantom having a diffusion tensor with known values in an interaction area of an Radio Frequency (RF) coil in a volume of the MRI scanner to be examined, rotating the anisotropic diffusion phantom by at least six Euler angles and for each rotated position of the anisotropic diffusion phantom, measuring, for each voxel of the volume of the MRI scanner to be examined, a Magnetic Resonance (MR) image intensity for no diffusion gradient applied and an MR image intensity for each of at least six distinct non-collinear directions of a diffusion gradient, on the basis of the MR image intensities, which were measured, and the known values of the diffusion tensor, determining a symmetrical “b” matrix for each of at least six distinct non-collinear directions of diffusion gradient for each voxel of the volume of the MRI scanner using the equation: ln ⁡ ( A ⁡ ( b ) / A ⁡ ( 0 ) ) = - ∑ i = 1 3 ⁢ ⁢ ∑ j = 1 3 ⁢ b ij ⁢ D ij , wherein: A(b) represents the MR image intensity for a given direction of diffusion gradient, A(0) represents the MR image intensity for no diffusion gradient applied, b represents the symmetrical “b” matrix, D represents the diffusion tensor, and i, j represent directions of diffusion gradients, and for each voxel, providing the set of at least six symmetrical “b” matrices to be used for determining diffusion tensor in subsequent MR-DTI experiments using the calibrated MR-DTI sequence for the MRI scanner.