Rapid measurement of brain macromolecular proton fraction with transient saturation transfer MRI.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

To develop an efficient MRI approach to estimate the nonwater proton fraction (f) in human brain.

Methods

We implement a brief, efficient magnetization transfer (MT) pulse that selectively saturates the magnetization of the (semi-) solid protons, and monitor the transfer of this saturation to the water protons as a function of delay after saturation.

Results

Analysis of the transient MT effect with two-pool model allowed robust extraction of f at both 3 and 7 T. This required estimating the longitudinal relaxation rate constant (R_1,MP and R_1,WP ) for both proton pools, which was achieved with the assumption of uniform R_1,MP and R_1,WP across brain tissues. Resulting values of f were approximately 50% higher than repor

SUBMITTER: van Gelderen P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5183566 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature