Central nervous system high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging: effect of increasing spatial resolution on resolving power.
Resolving power is a useful measure of the magnetic resonance (MR) imager-determined ability to discriminate subtle disease. Optimizing the resolving power produces the best MR images. The resolving power improves with higher spatial resolution, signal-to-noise ratio, and object contrast. Resolving power degrades with increased patient motion, which can be associated with prolonged imaging times. High and low object contrast 0.35-T MR images of the central nervous system are compared at different levels of spatial resolution and signal-to-noise ratios. In systems that have a marginal signal-to-noise ratio, the resolving power can actually decrease when higher spatial resolution is used due to further lowering of signal-to-noise ratio and to increased motion resulting from longer imaging times. This decreases the conspicuity of small, low contrast lesions.
D000236:Adenoma / Q000175:diagnosis; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis; D002493:Central Nervous System Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy / Q000379:methods; D009103:Multiple Sclerosis / Q000175:diagnosis; D009464:Neuroma, Acoustic / Q000175:diagnosis; D010911:Pituitary Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis; D013997:Time Factors