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Estimation of brain iron in vivo by means of the interecho time dependence of image contrast
Author(s) -
Ye Frank Q.,
Martin W. R. Wayne,
Allen Peter S.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
magnetic resonance in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.696
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1522-2594
pISSN - 0740-3194
DOI - 10.1002/mrm.1910360124
Subject(s) - imaging phantom , putamen , nuclear magnetic resonance , globus pallidus , contrast (vision) , nuclear medicine , in vivo , relaxation (psychology) , paramagnetism , relaxometry , image contrast , chemistry , magnetic resonance imaging , medicine , radiology , physics , biology , central nervous system , condensed matter physics , basal ganglia , optics , microbiology and biotechnology , spin echo
An imaging protocol for a quantitative estimation of disease‐induced variations in brain iron is proposed and then validated, first, on a phantom and second, on a group of 11 healthy volunteers. The relative estimate of brain iron is achieved from a rate difference image that measures the enhancement, δR 2app , of the transverse relaxation rate of water protons brought about by the heterogeneous accumulation of iron in the glial cells. At 1.5 T, the phantom study demonstrates, over the range 0‐6 A/m, a linear dependence of δR 2app on the magnetization difference between micro‐spheres and a paramagnetic gel, with a sensitivity of ∼2 s −1 A −1 m. In the group of healthy volunteers (mean age 33 ± 7 years) devoid of disease‐related or appreciable age‐related accumulations of iron, the precision of δR 2app was still sufficient to distinguish the globus pallidus and the putamen from all of the other iron‐containing brain structures in a manner that was significant at the 99% confidence level.