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Abstract #4402

Reduced Field-of-View Diffusion-Weighted Imaging of the Lumbosacral Enlargement: A Pilot In Vivo study of the healthy spinal cord using a clinical 3T MR system

Marios C Yiannakas1, Polymnia Louka1, Francesco Grussu1, Ferran Prados1,2, Rebecca S Samson1, Marco Battiston1, Sebastien Ourselin2, David H Miller1,3, and Claudia Angela Michela Gandini Wheeler-Kingshott1,4

1NMR Research Unit, Queen Square MS Centre, Department of Neuroinflammation, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, United Kingdom, 2Translational Imaging Group, Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, University College London, London, United Kingdom, 3NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, UCL-UCLH, London, United Kingdom, 4Brain Connectivity Center, C. Mondino National Neurological Institute, Pavia, Italy

The use of imaging methods to study the lower spinal cord has been hindered by a number of technical challenges; hence the relative contribution of pathology affecting the lower spinal cord to the observed clinical symptoms remains largely unexplored. In this pilot study, we investigate the feasibility of obtaining tissue-specific (grey matter and white matter) diffusion tensor imaging metrics within the lumbosacral enlargement in vivo in healthy volunteers using reduced field-of-view echo planar imaging on a clinical 3T MRI system. Preliminary results show that such measures may be obtained reliably and within clinically acceptable scan times.

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