MR Microscopy of Brain Cytoarchitecture by Quantitative Mapping of Magnetic Susceptibility

Chunlei Liu^1,2, Wei Li¹, G. Allan Johnson²

At high field strengths, phase images showed excellent image contrast and revealed anatomic structures that were not visible on the corresponding magnitude images. Here, we demonstrate that phase images and, more importantly, the corresponding susceptibility maps provide a novel contrast mechanism to visualize the microstructure of brain anatomy at the exquisite resolution offered by MR microscopy. In particular, we believe the described technique may provide a powerful tool to visualize brain cytoarchitecture at high speed and with ultra-high spatial resolution. We further anticipate that imaging magnetic susceptibility may provide a powerful tool for studying animal models of white matter diseases.