Love Erlandsson Nordin1,2, Leif Svensson1,2,
Per Julin3,4, Susanne Mller5, Terri Louise Lindholm1,2
1Medical Physics, Karolinska University
Hospital Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden; 2SMILE Image Laboratory,
Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden; 3AstraZeneca
R&D Neuroscience, Sdertlje, Sweden; 4Clinical Geriatrics,
Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden; 5Radiology,
Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden
The
aim of this study has been to optimize the contrast parameters of the MPRAGE
sequence for fully automatic brain tissue segmentation. The goal has been to
achieve as reliable and reproducible volumetric measurements of the human
brain as possible. The optimization was carried out on a 3 T MRI unit using 2
different multi array head coils (12 and 32 channels) and 9 healthy young
volunteers. The study also includes a comparison of the reproducibility in
measurement between the two head coils. The results show that it is possible
to achieve good reproducibility in measurement for the total brain volume and
the 12 channel head coil gives slightly more reproducible results.