Alexey A. Samsonov1, Andrew L. Alexander2,
Julia V. Velikina3, Ian D. Duncan4, Aaron S. Field1
1Department of Radiology, University of
Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States; 2Departments of Medical
Physics and Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States; 3Department
of Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States; 4School
of Veterinary Medicine, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States
We
report results of studying of quantitative parameters of two-pool MT
(cross-relaxation) model across ages in the shaking (sh) pup, a canine mutant
with a profound paucity of myelin. All
qMT measures were sensitive to changes between dysmyelinated and myelinated
dogs. The bound pool fraction f
provided the strongest discrimination between myelinated and dysmyelinated
dogs confirming its high sensitivity to myelin content. The observed qMT measures may represent a
result of mixing several potentially distinguishable bound pools including
myelin protons. Including additional
pool in a MT model may potentially help distinguishing myelin from other
components of bound proton pool.