Fatigue Effects on the Lower Leg Muscle Architecture Using Diffusion Tensor MRI

Proton density (PD) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) are techniques that enable the acquisition of data from living subjects can be used in fine-tuning subject-specific models’ architectural parameters. The aim this study was to determine vivo 3D parameters (volume, pennation angle, fiber length physiological cross-sectional area) gastrocnemius medialis, lateralis, soleus tibialis anterior muscles using proton before after an exhaustive one-legged jump exercise. These methods were six young physically active female subjects’ lower legs, followed by a fiber-tracking algorithm analysis tools. No significant differences found muscles’ architecture exercise, with following exceptions: anatomical cross-section area medialis increased (p-value 0.001, effect size 0.18) exercise; lengths lateralis higher exercise 0.002, 0.001 respectively, 2.03, 1.29 0.85, respectively); mean angle decreased 0.0015, 2.31). changes (or lack thereof) could attributed extended time MRI scans minimize noise: increasing time, may have been partially lost due muscle recovery.