Reconstruction of Skeletal Muscle Architecture from DT-MRI Sequences

Sarcopenia is defined as a muscle disease rooted in the continuous loss of muscle mass, strength and function. In terms of human health, sarcopenia leads to mobility disorders, increases the risk of falls and fractures and contributes to a lowered quality of life. Therefore, an early detection is essential for those suffering from sarcopenia. The rectus femoris muscle (RF) is suspected to be an early biomarker of sarcopenia in older adults. In this work the possibility of using MeVisLab as a muscle-specific diffusion tensor-magnetic resonance imaging (DT-MRI) software tool is analyzed. It turned out that MeVisLab is a powerful tool to perform muscle-specific processing and fiber tracking. The plausibility of the results is going to be discussed for further application in studies.