High-Resolution in Vivo MR Imaging of the Human Spinal Cord at 7 Tesla

Kyongtae Ty Bae^1,2, Chan-Hong Moon¹, Jung-Hwan Kim¹, Sung-Hong Park^1,2

We have developed MR surface coil and imaging technique suitable for high-resolution human spinal cord imaging at 7 T. Our method was applied to depiction of the gray (GM) and white matter (WM) of the cervical spinal cord on T1-weighted inversion recovery image which is reported superior to other sequences for the evaluation of spinal cord lesions in multiple sclerosis. Preliminary results indicate spinal cord imaging at 7T allows excellent visualization and differentiation of GM and WM due to greatly increased signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).