Abstract #4412

Improving the Quality of Neonatal Brain Structural MRI with Shorter Acquisition Train Length

Lili He¹, Jinghua Wang², Mark Smith³, Zhong-Lin Lu², and Nehal A Parikh^1,4

¹Center for Perinatal Research, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, United States, ²The Ohio State Univeristy, Columbus, OH, United States, ³Radiology, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, United States, ⁴Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, OH, United States

Three-dimensional (3D) T₁-weighted sequences such as MP-RAGE are invaluable for evaluation of neonatal and infant brain injury/development. Sequence optimization for neonates has been historically challenging because neonatal brains exhibit reversed white matter–gray matter (WM-GM) contrast on T₁-weighted scans, and the contrast is much lower than that of adult brains. In this study, we show in preterm neonates that shortening the acquisition train length of the MP-RAGE sequence significantly improved SNR and CNR efficiencies. The proposed optimization methodology can be easily extended to other populations (e.g. term infants, adults and elders), and different organs, field strengths and MR sequences.

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