Abstract #1518

Determination of Optimal Model Sampling Parameters for Hyperpolarized Contrast Agents

Eric T. Peterson¹, Matthew R. Smith², Joseph J. Grudzinski², Jeremy W. Gordon², Sean B. Fain^1,2

¹Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI, United States; ²Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI, United States

Hyperpolarized carbon metabolic imaging and spectroscopy have been shown to non-invasively probe in vivo metabolic and transport parameters. This work presents a method which can be used to determine the optimal sampling times and flip angles for any symbolically represented parametric model, or any model where the Fisher Information Matrix may be calculated, in order to maximize the parametric SNR of the acquisition. This allows a substantial increase in the parametric SNR for any imaging or spectroscopy sequence.