A Polypropylene Fiber Phantom to Simulate the Magnetic Susceptibility Effects of White Matter Microstructure at Varying Orientation to B0

Way Cherng Chen¹, Karla Miller¹

A phantom made of densely-packed fibers has been constructed to study the relationship of T2* and GRE phase maps to the orientation to B0. By minimizing the contribution of bulk magnetic susceptibility effects, signal changes can be more definitively attributed to the microstructural properties of the phantom. We observe a similar trend in the fiber phantom to that previously reported in white matter fibre tracts supporting the idea that phase and T2* variation in white matter fibers is related to magnetic susceptibility shifts associated with axonal micro-geometry.