Abstract #1718

Pakin S, Schweitzer M, Niang F, Regatte R

The purpose of the work was to demonstrate the feasibility of measuring 3D-T1rho MRI for in vivo quantitation of lumbar spine at a 3T clinical scanner. Spatial heterogeneity of T1 among S1-L5, L5-L4 and L4-L3 locations were observed on all five volunteers and this may be due to the variations in biochemical content (mainly GAG), load distribution and water content. The preliminary results demonstrate that it is possible to quantify 3D-T1rho MRI of lumbar spine in vivo without exceeding the RF power deposition at 3T clinical scanner.