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The impact of fibre orientation on T1-relaxation and apparent tissue water content in white matter

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Abstract

Objective

Recent MRI studies have shown that the orientation of nerve fibres relative to the main magnetic field affects the R2*(= 1/T2*) relaxation rate in white matter (WM) structures. The underlying physical causes have been discussed in several studies but are still not completely understood. However, understanding these effects in detail is of great importance since this might serve as a basis for the development of new diagnostic tools and/or improve quantitative susceptibility mapping techniques. Therefore, in addition to the known angular dependence of R2*, the current study investigates the relationship between fibre orientation and the longitudinal relaxation rate, R1 (= 1/T1), as well as the apparent water content.

Materials and methods

For a group of 16 healthy subjects, a series of gradient echo, echo-planar and diffusion weighted images were acquired at 3T from which the decay rates, the apparent water content and the diffusion direction were reconstructed. The diffusion weighted data were used to determine the angle between the principle fibre direction and the main magnetic field to examine the angular dependence of R1 and apparent water content.

Results

The obtained results demonstrate that both parameters depend on the fibre orientation and exhibit a positive correlation with the angle between fibre direction and main magnetic field.

Conclusion

These observations could be helpful to improve and/or constrain existing biophysical models of brain microstructure by imposing additional constraints resulting from the observed angular dependence R1 and apparent water content in white matter.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics and Technology, University of Applied Science Koblenz, Remagen, Germany

    Felix Schyboll, Uwe Jaekel & Heiko Neeb

  2. Department of Epileptology, University Hospital Bonn and Center for Economics and Neuroscience, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Bernd Weber

  3. Institute for Medical Engineering and Information Processing, University of Koblenz/Landau, Koblenz, Germany

    Heiko Neeb

Authors
  1. Felix Schyboll
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  2. Uwe Jaekel
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  3. Bernd Weber
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  4. Heiko Neeb
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Contributions

Schyboll: Protocol/project development, data collection and management, and data analysis. Neeb: Protocol/project development and data analysis. Jaekel: Protocol/project development and data analysis. Weber: Data collection and management.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Heiko Neeb.

Ethics declarations

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the University of Bonn and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were approved by the ethical review committee of the University of Bonn.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Schyboll, F., Jaekel, U., Weber, B. et al. The impact of fibre orientation on T1-relaxation and apparent tissue water content in white matter. Magn Reson Mater Phy 31, 501–510 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10334-018-0678-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10334-018-0678-8

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