Impact of incidental magnetization transfer effects on inversion-recovery sequences that use a fast spin-echo readout.
Multislice MR images obtained using a fast spin-echo (FSE) readout are strongly affected by magnetization transfer (MT) effects, which will cause a decrease in the observed longitudinal relaxation times for tissues with a large bound water component. This is pertinent for FSE-based inversion-recovery (IR) sequences, as it would be expected to cause a change in the required inversion times. Furthermore, the effect will be greater as the number of slices that are acquired within the repetition time (TR) is increased. A pseudo-3D IR-FSE sequence was used to obtain images of a phantom consisting of thermally crosslinked bovine serum albumin. It was found that increasing the number of slabs acquired per TR period led to a decrease in the inversion time that maximally suppressed the signal from the MT phantom; this was not the case for water. This has important consequences for any IR imaging sequence that uses an FSE readout.
Meara
Simon J P
SJ
Imaging Science and Biomedical Engineering Research Group, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom. simon.meara@manchester.ac.uk
Barker
Gareth J
GJ
D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain; D002417:Cattle; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D012709:Serum Albumin
D012709:Serum Albumin