Abstract #2064

Diffusion Weighted Imaging with Whole Brain Coverage and Sub-Microliter Voxels

Joseph L. Holtrop¹,², Bradley P. Sutton¹,²

¹Bioengineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, United States; ²Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, United States

Diffusion weighted imaging provides a contrast mechanism that is sensitive to the microscopic restrictions of water. This contrast can be used to infer information about the general health of the tissue, integrity of white matter tracts, or to study microvascular blood flow. In this work, we demonstrate a 3D multislab technique that can be used to create images with comparable resolutions and coverage to high resolution structural MRI scans, but with diffusion weighting as contrast. Results from a 3 T system with 0.8 mm isotropic resolutions and whole brain coverage are presented.