Reliable Cortical Thickness Estimation with Reduction of Susceptibility-Induced Signal Loss Using Optimized T1-Weighted Single-Slab 3D Turbo Spin Echo Pulse Sequence

Hyunyeol Lee¹, Eung Yeop Kim², Jin-Suck Suh², Jaeseok Park²

MP-RAGE, currently has gained popularity in volumetric studies, is highly influenced by susceptibility-indeced magnetic field inhomogeneities, yielding signal losses or image distortions. In this work, we investigated the feasibility of the optimized sinlge-slab 3D fast/turbo spin echo imaging for the accurate measurement of cortical thickness. Our Results demonstrated that the proposed method alleviated susceptibility-induced problems, and thereby yielding more reliable volumetric values, as compared to those from conventional MP-RAGE. We concluded that the proposed sequence could be an alternative to conventional MP-RAGE for brain volumetry.