To improve image quality for investigation of spinal cord injury, a reduced field of view excitation scheme was implemented on a Bruker 9.4T imaging system. This was combined with an optimized orthogonal filter-probe diffusion weighted imaging sequence to improve specificity for axonal injury with a short acquisition time. Application in a rat spinal cord injury model showed sensitive detection of diffusivity changes 48 hours post-injury with improved image quality compared to a standard full field of view acquisition. These advances provide support for this technique as a potential biomarker of injury severity with the ability for translation into clinical systems.
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