Abstract #1102

Quantitative Analysis and Mapping of Myelin Water Frequency-Shift Using T2* Relaxation Signals at 3T

Zhe Wu¹, Dosik Hwang², Yiping P. Du¹

¹Department of Biomedical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China; ²School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea

Three-pool model fitting of data acquired from multi-echo gradient echo (MGRE) MRI have already shown as an effective assessment of quantitative myelin water fraction (MWF) analysis, but the possible frequency shift of myelin water was not considered. This study demonstrated the preliminary results of frequency shift mapping from postmortem human brain in 3T. A modified three-pool model was used by adding a frequency shift item to original three-pool model. A two-step fitting procedure for the quantitation MWF was also proposed using this modified model. The range of resulted frequency shift map agreed well with previous literature. A reduction of fitting error compared with original three-pool model was also obtained.