Compartmental study of T1 and T2 in rat brain and trigeminal nerve in vivo

✍ Scribed by Mark D. Does; John C. Gore

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 596 KB
• Volume: 47
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0740-3194
• DOI: 10.1002/mrm.10060

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The integrated T~1~–T~2~ characteristics of rat brain and trigeminal nerve water were studied in vivo using a rapid method for acquiring a series of images that depend on T~1~ and T~2~ relaxation times. Gray matter regions showed only one signal component in both the T~1~ and T~2~ domains. Trigeminal nerve, however, which has been shown previously to exhibit three T~2~ components, was found to also exhibit three T~1~ components. The correlations between these T~1~ and T~2~ components were demonstrated by uniquely filtering out each of the three T~2~ components using an inversion‐recovery preparation, as determined by the component T~1~ values. Based on previous works, it is postulated that each of these three signal components is derived from a unique microanatomical region of the nerve. Knowledge of these T~1~ components may thus prove valuable in devising novel methods of identifying the presence and quantifying the volume of tissue subtypes such as myelin. Magn Reson Med 47:274–283, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.