Journal
NEUROIMAGE
Volume 95, Issue -, Pages 106-116Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.03.005
Keywords
Multiple Sclerosis; Quantitative magnetization transfer; Spinal cord; High-resolution
Funding
- NIH/NIBIB [K01 EB009120, K25 EB013659]
- NIH/NCI [R25 CA136440]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Quantitative magnetization transfer (qMT) imaging can provide indices describing the interactions between free water protons and immobile macromolecular protons. These indices include the macromolecular proton fraction (MPF), which has been shown to correlate with myelin content in white matter. Because of the long scan times required for high-resolution spinal cord imaging, qMT studies of the human spinal cord have not found widespread application. Herein, we investigated whether these limitations could be overcome by utilizing only a single MT-weighted acquisition and a reference measurement, as was recently proposed in the brain. High-resolution, in vivo qMT data were obtained at 3.0 T in the spinal cords of healthy volunteers and patients with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (MS). Low- and high-resolution acquisitions (low/high resolution = 1 x 1 x 5 mm(3)/0.65 x 0.65 x 5 mm(3)) with clinically acceptable scan times (12 min/7 min) were evaluated. We also evaluated the reliability over time and the sensitivity of the model to the assumptions made in the single-point method, both in disease and healthy tissues. Our findings suggest that the single point qMT technique can provide maps of the MPF in the spinal cord in vivo with excellent grey/white matter contrast, can be reliably obtained within reasonable scan times, and are sensitive to MS pathology. Consistent with previous qMT studies in the brain, the observed MPF values were higher in healthy white matter (0.16 +/- 0.01) than in grey matter (0.13 +/- 0.01) and in MS lesions (0.09 +/- 0.01). The single point qMT technique applied at high resolution provides an improved method for obtaining qMT in the human spinal cord and may offer a reliable outcome measure for evaluating spinal cord disease. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available