In vivo blood T(1) measurements at 1.5 T, 3 T, and 7 T

Zhang, X.; Petersen, E.T.; Ghariq, E.; Vis, J.B. de; Webb, A.G.; Teeuwisse, W.M.; ... ; Osch, M.J.P. van (2012)

Article / Letter to editor

The longitudinal relaxation time of blood is a crucial parameter for quantification of cerebral blood flow by arterial spin labeling and is one of the main determinants of the signal-to-noise ratio of the resulting perfusion maps. Whereas at low and medium magnetic field strengths (B(0) ), its in vivo value is well established; at ultra-high field, this is still uncertain. In this study, longitudinal relaxation time of blood in the sagittal sinus was measured at 1.5 T, 3 T, and 7 T. A nonselective inversion pulse preceding a Look-Locker echo planar imaging sequence was performed to obtain the inversion recovery curve of venous blood. The results showed that longitudinal relaxation time of blood at 7 T was ∼ 2.1 s which translates to an anticipated 33% gain in the signal-to-noise ratio in arterial spin labeling experiments due to T(1) relaxation alone compared with 3 T. In addition, the linear relationship between longitudinal relaxation time of blood and B(0) was confirmed. Magn Reson Med, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

• All authors: Zhang, X.; Petersen, E.T.; Ghariq, E.; Vis, J.B. de; Webb, A.G.; Teeuwisse, W.M.; Hendrikse, J.; Osch, M.J.P. van
• Date: 2012-11-21
• DOI: doi:10.1002/mrm.24550