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Water diffusion anisotropy in white and gray matter of the human spinal cord
Author(s) -
Rossi Cristina,
Boss Andreas,
Steidle Günter,
Martirosian Petros,
Klose Uwe,
Capuani Silvia,
Maraviglia Bruno,
Claussen Claus D.,
Schick Fritz
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of magnetic resonance imaging
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.563
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1522-2586
pISSN - 1053-1807
DOI - 10.1002/jmri.21252
Subject(s) - anisotropy , diffusion imaging , white matter , diffusion mri , fractional anisotropy , nuclear magnetic resonance , spinal cord , echo planar imaging , chemistry , materials science , physics , nuclear medicine , medicine , magnetic resonance imaging , optics , radiology , psychiatry
Purpose To develop a reliable technique for diffusion imaging of the human spinal cord at 1.5 Tesla and to assess potential differences in diffusion anisotropy in cross‐sectional images. Materials and Methods A single‐shot echo‐planar imaging sequence with double spin‐echo diffusion preparation was optimized regarding cerebrospinal fluid artifacts, effective resolution, and contrast‐to‐noise ratios. Eleven healthy volunteers participated in the study for quantitative characterization of diffusion anisotropy in white matter (WM) and gray matter (GM) by means of two diffusion encoding schemes: octahedral‐six‐directions for fractional anisotropy (FA) evaluation and orthogonal‐three‐directions for anisotropy index (AI) calculation. Results Pulse‐trigger gated sequences with optimal matrix size (read × phase = 64 × 32) and b‐value (700 s/mm 2 ) allowed the acquisition of high‐resolved images (voxel size = 0.9 × 0.9 × 5.0 mm 3 ). The GM butterfly shape was recognizable in both AI and FA maps. Both encoding schemes yielded high diffusion anisotropy in dorsal WM (FA = 0.79 ± 0.07; AI = 0.39 ± 0.04). Lateral WM showed slightly lower anisotropy (FA = 0.69 ± 0.08; AI = 0.35 ± 0.03) than dorsal WM. Clearly smaller anisotropy was found in regions containing GM (FA = 0.45 ± 0.06; AI = 0.21 ± 0.05). Conclusion Diffusion anisotropy data of the spinal cord can be obtained in a clinical setting. Its application seems promising for the assessment of neurological disorders. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.