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Fig 4. Comparison of diffusion tensor properties obtained without (top row) and with (bottom row) optimized cardiac triggering, illustrated in midspinal coronal reformat of axial section data. The CSF space and CSF-spinal cord interface are better defined in the low b-value data (D versus A) allowing the low FA in the CSF space to be better appreciated (F versus C). FA maps (B and E) color-coded to reflect the orientation of the first eigenvector (blue, caudal-cranial; green, anteroposterior; red, right-left) show greater consistency between sections when the proposed trigger window is used. This is also seen when examining the orientation of the eigenvectors directly overlaid on a gray-scale FA map (F versus C).
