Emine Ulku Saritas1, Greg Zaharchuk2,
Ajit Shankaranarayanan3, Murat Aksoy2, Roland Bammer2,
Nancy J. Fischbein2, Maxwell Boakye4, Dwight G.
Nishimura1
1Department of Electrical Engineering,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States; 2Department of
Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States; 3Global
Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, United States; 4Department
of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States
There
is much interest in extending diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) research to the
spinal cord, whose connections are responsible for motor and sensory
functions of the body. However, DTI of the spinal cord is limited by the need
for high spatial-resolution, as well as the difficulties associated with
susceptibility differences, field inhomogeneities (especially at 3T), and
motion of the cord. A reduced field-of-view (FOV) method using a 2D
echo-planar RF excitation has recently been shown to overcome these
limitations and improve spinal cord diffusion-weighted imaging. This study
addresses the application of this method to acquire high-resolution
low-distortion DTI (including both fractional anisotropy (FA) maps and fiber
tractography) of the spinal cord at 3T.
Keywords