Abstract #1475

de Graaf R, Nixon T, Behar K, Rothman D, Brown P, McIntyre S

A comprehensive and quantitative measurement of T1 and T2 relaxation times of water and metabolites in rat brain under identical experimental conditions at three high magnetic field strengths (4.0 T, 9.4 T and 11.7 T) is presented. Water relaxation show a highly significant increase (T1) and decrease (T2) with increasing field strength for all nine analyzed brain structures. Similar, but less pronounced, effects were observed for all metabolites. Among other features, this data shows that while spectral resolution continues to increase with field strength, SNR in T1/T2 based anatomical MRI may actually decrease at higher magnetic fields.