A time series analysis technique for effective thermal strain imaging in atherosclerotic plaques by reducing large cardiac motion induced artifacts

Large lipid pools in vulnerable plaques, in principle, can be detected using thermal strain imaging (TSI). The practical challenge for in vivo cardiovascular application of TSI is that the thermal strain is about an order of magnitude smaller than the peak mechanical strain caused by cardiac pulsation and the former is often masked by the latter. ECG gating is a widely adopted method for motion compensation, but it is often susceptible to electrical and physiological noise. In this paper, we present an ECG-free time series analysis approach to separate the thermal strain from the mechanical strain in in vitro experiments using vessel mimicking phantom where the cardiac pulsation is simulated by a pulsatile pump.