Abstract #0969

Grunfeld R, Zimmermann E, Meadowcroft M, Smith M, Connor J, Yang Q, Wang J, Sun X

The age dependence of transverse relaxation rate R2 (1/T2) in the human brain was systemically studied on 37 9-50 year old normal volunteers at 3 T using a high resolution multi-echo spin-echo sequence. Voxel-based analysis showed an evident age dependence of R2 in most deep brain gray matter structures within the studied age range. Regression analyses revealed that an increase of R2 follows a similar logarithmic trend in most of these structures. No significant difference was observed between the two gender groups. The normalized data provide an important baseline for clinical applications of quantitative R2 mapping of brain.