Abstract #3210

In Vivo Multislice Mapping of Myelin Water Content of the Brain with T2* Signal Decay

Dosik Hwang¹, Yiping P. Du²

¹Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea; ²Psychiatry, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA

In vivo myelin water content was successfully estimated using T₂* relaxation with multislice acquisitions. The advantages of using T₂* are (1) low specific absorption rate, (2) short first echo time (~2ms) and short echo spacing (~1ms), (3) fast multislice acquisitions up to 8 slices in high resolution (256 x 256) (24 slices could be possible). An adequate temporal SNR for the exponential fitting was achieved with use of an 8-channel phased-array coil. The optimal T₂* range for the myelin water signal was found from 3 to 23 ms. Multislice high-resolution myelin maps were obtained in 8.5 minutes.