Estimating mechanical properties of the heart using dynamic modeling and magnetic resonance imaging

We present an algorithm for estimating active and passive mechanical properties of the heart using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tissue-tagging and blood pressure measurements. We combine physical modeling with a finite-element formulation and dynamic analysis, and apply non-linear optimization to estimate the unknown parameters. We assume that the myocardium's stiffness tensor is anisotropic and non-homogeneous.