Figure 9
(A) DSI tractography of an infarcted rat heart: The infarct boundary is highly irregular and characterized by numerous residual myofibers extending from within the infarct to the basal and septal border zones. Subendocardial-like myofibers (pink) extend from the infarct to its basal border zone and form a network of orthogonal myofibers with the transversely oriented mid-to-subepicardial fibers (blue-green) that course from the infarct to the septum. (B) Hematoxylin and eosin section of the basal and lateral portion of the infarct. (C) Magnified view of the basal portion of the infarct: Residual orthogonal myofibers lie in the same plane, are not separated by an intervening layer of myofibers and can thus form nodes of orthogonal myofiber intersection or contact (NOMIC). (C) NOMICs in the infarcted myocardium (red spheres with a radius of 1 voxel, volume of 0.27 mm3 and containing a pair of orthogonal myofibers) are shown in the inset at the bottom left of the panel. (D) Magnified view of a NOMIC from panel (C) showing a pair of intersecting orthogonal myofibers in more detail. Reproduced with permission from Sosnovik et al [27].