A reference dataset of in-vivo human left-ventricular fiber architecture in systole and diastole

Background Computational cardiac modelling has been established as a valuable tool for simulating electrophysiology and electromechanics of the heart [1], with promising applications to “personalized medicine” [1]. Realistic computational models require a detailed description of left-ventricular cardiac fiber architecture. So far, nonpatient-specific fiber architectures have been obtained from histology or diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of excised post-mortem hearts. However, compared to invivo, ex-vivo physiological conditions including ventricular pressure and residual contractile forces deviate significantly, hence potentially impacting measured fiber metrics. The objective of this work was to obtain and make available cardiac DTI data of the in-vivo human heart with full cardiac coverage in both peak systole and mid diastole including correction for myocardial strain.