Abstract #3357

Acquisition and processing strategy for obtaining high quality, distortion free diffusion MRI of the brainstem and cervical spine

Neda Sadeghi¹, Joelle E. Sarlls², Jessica Jordan³, Flavia Facio⁴, Elizabeth B. Hutchinson^1,5, M. Okan Irfanoglu¹, Amritha Nayak^1,5, Laura Reyes^1,5, Shruti Japee³, Irini Manoli⁴, Carlo Pierpaoli¹, and Moebius Syndrome Research Consortium^6,7,8

¹Quantitative Medical Imaging Section, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States, ²NIH MRI Research Facility, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States, ³Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States, ⁴Medical Genomics and Metabolic Genetics Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States, ⁵Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Bethesda, MD, United States, ⁶NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States, ⁷Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States, ⁸Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City, NY, United States

Despite its clear clinical and research usefulness, high quality in-vivo diffusion MRI imaging of the brainstem and the cervical spine has been challenging due to susceptibility-induced distortions and ghosting in echo planar images (EPI). In this study, we propose an acquisition and data processing strategy that can be carried out on clinical scanners with commonly available EPI sequences with good resolution and in a reasonable scan time (less than 30 minutes). We apply this acquisition strategy to the study of pyramidal decussation in subjects with Moebius syndrome and mirror movements.

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