1Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States, 2Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
Multi-flip, multi-echo 3D FLASH is routinely used
to estimate T1. We present a novel, efficient algorithm for finding both the ML
estimate and a confidence interval for T1, given full, multi-channel data from
such an experiment. Finding the ML estimate is based on minimizing a cost
function. The ends of the CI are a threshold value for the same cost function,
where the threshold is determined via Monte Carlo experiment based on the
protocol and desired confidence level. Results from a phantom study are shown,
demonstrating the value of CIs in interpreting the validity of the ML
estimates.
