Reduction of the Magic Angle Effect on Contrast in Magnetization Transfer Imaging of Human Cartilage

Weiguo Li¹, Jun Li², Carol Muehleman², Richard Magin¹

In MRI, magic angle (MA) effect visualizes as bright spots in e.g. collagen fibers of tendons and ligaments and often confounds accurate interpretation of these areas. However, very few studies were conducted to reduce the MA effect during imaging of cartilage in vivo. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the MA effect is reduced more in MT-weighted images than in T2-weighted images using MR microscopy at 11.7 T on human cartilage plug. An in vivo investigation is being applied to verify the conclusions from this study.