Synopsis

Different MRI techniques have been developed over the past 30 years for measuring heart mechanics and assessing regional cardiac function. These techniques include tagging with saturation bands, spatial modulation of magnetization (SPAMM), complementary SPAMM (CSPAMM)), harmonic-phase (HARP) analysis, strain-encoding (SENC), displacement-encoding with stimulated-echoes (DENSE), tissue phase-mapping (TPM), cine cardiac feature-tracking (FT), and magnetic resonance elastography (MRE). Further, the recent advancements in in vivo MRI diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of the heart allowed for better understanding of the cardiac myofiber structure and its effect on the heart function. In this presentation, these techniques will be reviewed along with their clinical applications.