Spin-lattice relaxation time measurement by means of a TurboFLASH technique

✍ Scribed by Stefan Blüml; Lothar R. Schad; Boris Stepanow; Walter J. Lorenz

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 719 KB
• Volume: 30
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0740-3194
• DOI: 10.1002/mrm.1910300304

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Rapid measurements of in vivo proton spin‐lattice relaxation times (T~1~) in human tissues were performed by magnetic resonance imaging in a 1.5 T whole‐body super‐conducting MR scanner. The measurements employ serial TurboFLASH imaging (Snapshot‐FLASH) with scan times for a single experiment below 4 s. Using centric phase encoding order, an appropriate fitling of the T~1~‐parameter from images with minimum motion artifacts is possible. Comparative T~1~‐determination with a multipoint inversion recovery and spin‐echo technique was performed on phantoms containing Gd‐DTPA solutions with different T~1~‐values. We found a maximum deviation of 3.3% for T~1~ < 1100 ms and of 12.1% for 1100 ms < T~1~ < 1700 ms from the results obtained by the IR technique. In vivo measurements of T~1~‐relaxation times were performed in white and grey matter, cerebrospinal fluid, kidney, liver, spleen, muscle, and bone marrow, and yielded values that are in good agreement with reported data.