Active Heart, Stroke & Blood Brain & Nervous System

Next-Generation Diffusion Tensor Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance to Characterise Cardiac Microstructure in Health and Disease

Funder BHF Charity-funded
Recipient organisation Imperial College London
Funding £1.6M
Period Jun 2024 — May 2029

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A new scanner, three times more powerful than current models, will for the first time let researchers watch the human heart’s microscopic muscle fibres twist and contract in three dimensions during a single scan. Current scans show the heart’s shape and pumping action but cannot reveal how its internal microstructure—the alignment of muscle cells and fibres—organises contraction. This hidden architecture goes wrong after heart attacks, in congenital heart disease, and in cardiomyopathies, but doctors have no way to see it directly. The team will combine the ultra-strong scanner with AI-driven image reconstruction and holographic 3D visualisations, then feed the data into a computer model that links fibre movement to overall heart strain. If successful, the work could transform diagnosis. Instead of relying on late-stage symptoms or invasive biopsies, clinicians might spot microstructural damage early and tailor treatments to individual patients. The project also advances fundamental science: understanding exactly how the heart’s internal scaffolding coordinates each beat. That knowledge, while not immediately clinical, could eventually guide new surgical repairs or drug designs—much as earlier diffusion imaging did for brain white-matter disorders.

View original technical description
Diffusion Tensor (DT) Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (CMR) interrogates (sub)-mm cardiac microstructure and function, bridging microscopic (µm) and macroscopic imaging (cm) scales. Next generation advances now position DT-CMR on the threshold of 2 substantial scientific breakthroughs: a) Understanding cardiac contraction in 3D; b) Improved diagnosis in cardiac pathologies. We will install the latest Siemens Cima.X scanner in Q4 2023 (separate funding) which has >3 times the gradient strength of our current scanner. This will be a world-first for DT-CMR. We will leverage this ultrahigh performance hardware with advanced acquisition strategies, image reconstruction, and utilising AI to improve efficiency, robustness and coverage. We will advance post-processing through the first use of holographic visualisations of the 3D cardiac diffusion data. Development of our in-silico models of diffusion within the myocardium will guide technique development and provide insights into DT-CMR sensitivity. We will comprehensively model and link microstructural function to the resultant myocardial strain and cardiac function by combining DT-CMR derived microstructure into our 3D in-silico biomechanical heart model to understand contraction. As technical developments mature, we will deploy clinically (separate funding), extending our existing microstructure findings in myocardial infarction (MI) congenital heart disease (CHD), and cardiomyopathy (CM), translating technical advances into patient benefit.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Dudley Pennell (EPMC Awardee)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

The cardiac microstructure in health and disease
New Horizons in Clinical Cardiac Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Diffusion tensor cardiovascular magnetic resonance assessment of cardiac microstructure in adult congenital heart disease (Dr Miriam Conway)
Investigation of post-myocardial infarction left ventricular remodelling by diffusion tensor cardiac magnetic resonance (Dr Ramyah Rajakulasingam)
SmartHeart: Next-generation cardiovascular healthcare via integrated image acquisition, reconstruction, analysis and learning

Original classification

Programme Grant

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