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Abstract #2332

Multicontrast 3D Structural Imaging to Improve Automatic Brain Extraction and Segmentation

Bradley P. Sutton1,2, Anh Tu Van3

1Bioengineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, United States; 2Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, United States; 3Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, United States


Currently many structural neuroimaging studies rely only on a T1-weighted image for brain extraction. Additional image contrast like T2 may improve the performance of the automatic brain extraction procedure. In this work, a previously proposed multiparametric 3D structural imaging sequence that provides several volumes with varying contrast in a multi-echo acquisition is used to assist in automatic brain segmentation. Two 3D volumes (one T1-weighted and one T2-weighted) with 1.2 mm isotropic resolution and a low resolution 3D field map were obtained simultaneously within 6.5 minutes. Improvement in brain extraction utilizing the additional contrast was observed.