Klaus Schmierer1, Sean CL Deoni2, Declan Chard1, David H. Miller1, Claudia AM Wheeler-Kingshott1
1Neuroinflammation, Institute of Neurology, UCL, London, England, UK; 2Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, England, UK
DESPOT1 and DESPOT2 (driven equilibrium single pulse observation of T1 and T2) allow rapid and signal-to-noise ratio efficient mapping of T1 and T2 over large volumes with high spatial resolution. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a demyelinating condition of the CNS in which both tissue specificity of quantitative MRI and quick image acquisition is desirable. Post mortem brain tissue allows correlation of MRI with matched histology. We optimized DESPOT1 and DESPOT2 for use in post mortem MS brain. High quality T1 and T2 maps were produced suggesting these novel techniques may become useful tools to monitor MS in vivo.