Patent Document ID: 20160356873
Application ID: 15117770
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for quantifying isotropic diffusion and/or anisotropic diffusion in a sample, the method comprising: performing diffusion weighted magnetic resonance measurements on the sample using diffusion encoding magnetic gradient pulse sequences G i=1. .. m , wherein each magnetic gradient pulse sequence G i is generated such that a diffusion encoding tensor b i for the magnetic gradient pulse sequence G i has one to three non-zero eigenvalues, where b i = ∫ 0 τ q i ( t ) q i T ( t )  t , q i (t) is a dephasing vector proportional to ∫ 0 t G i ( t ′ )  t ′ and τ is an echo time, collecting data representing magnetic resonance echo signal measurements, at least a subset of said data representing echo signals being acquired with a set of magnetic gradient pulse sequences causing anisotropic diffusion weighting, wherein the diffusion encoding tensor for each gradient pulse sequence of said set of magnetic gradient pulse sequences has three non-zero eigenvalues, at least one of the three eigenvalues being different from the other eigenvalues, and calculating a degree of isotropic diffusion and/or a degree of anisotropic diffusion using said data.