Ruth L. O'Gorman1, Stephen J. Wastling2, Michelle Footman2, David J. Lythgoe3, Michael Samuel4, Richard Selway5, Keyoumars Ashkan5, Jozef Jarosz1
1Neuroradiology, King's College Hospital, London, UK; 2Medical Engineering and Physics, King's College Hospital, London, UK; 3Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK; 4Neurology, King's College Hospital, London, UK; 5Neurosurgery, King's College Hospital, London, UK
The subthalamic nucleus (STN) and globus pallidus (GPi) are two common target structures used for deep brain stimulation. These structures are typically localised from T2 or PD FSE images, but their visibility may be improved with alternative MRI methods. This study quantitatively compared the contrast to noise ratio of the STN and GPi with a range of MRI sequences including susceptibility weighting (SWI) and T2* mapping. For the STN, the SWI, T2*, and late echo gradient echo images demonstrate comparable or better contrast relative to the standard T2 FSE. For the GPi, the standard PD FSE demonstrates the highest contrast.