An in vivo Investigation Into the Potential Benefit of High-Field MR for Diffusion Imaging

Joelle E. Sarlls¹, S Lalith Talagala¹

It is still unclear if typical diffusion-weighted imaging (DW) will benefit from 7T. At higher field there is an increase in magnetization, yet T2-relaxation is shortened, limiting the utility of DWI due to the neccesarily long echo times. Previous studies comparing SNR for DWI at 7T and 3T used significantly different scan parameters and receiver coils. In this study, we compare the SNR of white matter regions, in vivo, for DWI relevent echo times at 7T and 3T using identical scan parameters and comparable receive coils. Our data shows that SNR is greater at 7T for all echo times investigated.