Curtis L. Johnson1,
2, Joseph L. Holtrop, 23, Matthew D.J. McGarry4,
John B. Weaver4, 5, Keith D. Paulsen4,
5, Bradley P. Sutton, 23, John G. Georgiadis1,
2
1Mechanical
Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana,
IL, United States; 2Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, United States; 3Bioengineering,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, United States; 4Thayer
School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, United States; 5Dartmouth-Hitchcock
Medical Center, Lebanon, NH, United States
Most estimates of the mechanical properties of brain tissue from MRE are average values computed over only a small number of slices. This is derived from the need to keep scan times short for subject comfort and safety, which leads to acquisitions exhibiting low spatial resolution or poor brain coverage. In this work we take advantage of the SNR efficiency of 3D multislab acquisitions to develop an MRE sequence capable of acquiring high-resolution MRE displacement data with whole-brain coverage in a reasonable scan time.
Keywords