Rapid whole brain qMT imaging with inter-slice MT effects and database-driven fitting approach

Abstract

Quantitative magnetization transfer (qMT) imaging provides unique tissue contrast, but suffers from prolonged scan time and processing time. The current study suggests inter-slice MT acquisition and database-driven qMT parameter fitting in order to mitigate the problems. Inter-slice scanning takes advantage of incidental MT effects, and thus does not require separate MT preparation. It enabled us to complete the whole brain data acquisition within a clinically reasonable scan time of ~10 min. The employment of pre-defined database also greatly reduced the qMT processing time, while revealing consistent qMT maps compared to those from the conventional method. The proposed database-driven inter-slice qMT method can be a promising alternative of qMT imaging.