Shear modulus and viscosity measurement using MR elastography

This paper describes a method of estimating the shear modulus and viscosity of an elastic material by magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) using the instantaneous frequency method. The shear modulus was calculated from the phase of the observed MRE signal and the viscosity from the amplitude. First, we performed a simulation to confirm the suitability of our proposed method. The results indicated that the method is appropriate for estimating the elasticity parameter values and is robust against noise. Then, we estimated the elasticity parameter values of a phantom and compared them with those obtained by dynamic testing. There was a good correlation between the two sets of values. (author)