Conceptual Foundations of Diffusion in Magnetic Resonance

Abstract

A thorough review of the q-space technique is presented starting from a discussion of Fick's laws. The work presented here is primarily conceptual, theoretical and hopefully pedagogical. We offered the notion of molecular concentration to unify Fick's laws and diffusion MRI within a coherent conceptual framework. The fundamental relationship between diffusion MRI and the Fick's laws are carefully established. The conceptual and theoretical basis of the q-space technique is investigated from first principles.