3D ultrasound fascicle tractography for objective muscle architecture analysis.
- 1Ruhr University Bochum
Abstract
Muscle architecture shapes muscle function and changes with age, growth, training and disease, yet quantifying three-dimensional (3D) muscle architecture in vivo remains challenging. We introduce a hybrid fascicle tractography approach for freehand 3D ultrasound data that accurately reconstructs 3D muscle fascicles with respect to an objective, anatomically relevant coordinate system defined by the muscle's central aponeurosis. The hybrid approach combines Hessian-based fascicle detection with wavelet-based refinement to generate volumetric fascicle orientations. In a synthetic dataset with known ground truth, fascicle orientations and lengths were estimated with errors of [≤]2{degrees} and ~1.5%, respectively. In vivo, the approach detected physiologically plausible fascicle lengthening in the human tibialis anterior following a passive plantar flexion rotation, whereas diffusion tensor imaging of the same muscle did not. The proposed method enables anatomically relevant, objective and non-invasive quantification of 3D muscle architecture in vivo, providing a practical framework for applications in clinical and applied muscle physiology.
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BibTeX
@misc{tecchio2026ultrasound,
title = {{3D ultrasound fascicle tractography for objective muscle architecture analysis.}},
author = {P. Tecchio and L. Schlaffke and B. Bolsterlee and D. Hahn and B. J. Raiteri},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.64898/2026.08.31.746736},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.31.746736v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - 3D ultrasound fascicle tractography for objective muscle architecture analysis.
AU - P. Tecchio
AU - L. Schlaffke
AU - B. Bolsterlee
AU - D. Hahn
AU - B. J. Raiteri
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/31
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.08.31.746736
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.31.746736v1
AB - Muscle architecture shapes muscle function and changes with age, growth, training and disease, yet quantifying three-dimensional (3D) muscle architecture in vivo remains challenging. We introduce a hybrid fascicle tractography approach for freehand 3D ultrasound data that accurately reconstructs 3D muscle fascicles with respect to an objective, anatomically relevant coordinate system defined by the muscle's central aponeurosis. The hybrid approach combines Hessian-based fascicle detection with wavelet-based refinement to generate volumetric fascicle orientations. In a synthetic dataset with known ground truth, fascicle orientations and lengths were estimated with errors of [≤]2{degrees} and ~1.5%, respectively. In vivo, the approach detected physiologically plausible fascicle lengthening in the human tibialis anterior following a passive plantar flexion rotation, whereas diffusion tensor imaging of the same muscle did not. The proposed method enables anatomically relevant, objective and non-invasive quantification of 3D muscle architecture in vivo, providing a practical framework for applications in clinical and applied muscle physiology.
ER -