Julien Sein1,
Bharathi D. Jagadeesan2, 3, Andrew W. Grande3,
4, Julian Tokarev5, Michael Salmella2, Kamil
Ugurbil1, Pierre-Francois Van de Moortele1
1CMRR,
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States; 2Department
of Radiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States; 3Department
of Neurosurgery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States; 4Department
of Neurology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States; 5Medical
School TC, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States
Trigeminal Neuralgia is a disorder whose exact pathophysiological mechanism remains unknown although in most cases by neurovascular compression along the trigeminal nerve by a neighboring vessel. It is critical for diagnosis and preoperative planning to understand the relationships between the neurovascular entities involved in this compression. We show that high-resolution images acquired on a 7T MRI scanner using different contrast modalities (T1, T2, T2*) clearly depict these neurovascular structures. Therefore high resolution imaging of the Trigeminal Nerve at 7 Tesla has the potential to further our understanding of the pathophysiology of this disorder.
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