A method for MRI includes performing an MRI experiment on a material to acquire an echo attenuation data set using a gradient modulation scheme comprising 1D diffusion encoding and to acquire an echo attenuation data set using a gradient modulation scheme comprising 2D diffusion encoding, determining respective first-order deviations μ2 from mono-exponential decay in said echo attenuation data sets, and generating MRI parameter maps or MR image contrast based on said first-order deviations μ2.
Analysis for quantifying microscopic diffusion anisotropy