Shannon Heather Kolind1, Cornelia Laule, Irene Vavasour, Burkhard Mdler2, Alexander Rauscher, Virginia Devonshire, John Hooge, Joel Oger, Penelope Smyth, Anthony Traboulsee, Wayne Moore, David Li, Alexander MacKay
1Physics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada; 2Philips Medical Systems, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Using a recently developed 3D multi-echo T2 relaxation sequence for increased brain coverage, we conducted histogram analysis for a more thorough characterization of myelin water fraction (MWF, the short T2 component of water in brain associated with myelin) in multiple sclerosis (MS) brain than has previously been possible. We also investigated the relationship between MWF and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measures. Thirteen MS patients and 11 controls underwent T2 relaxation and DTI examinations to create histograms for white matter and lesion. MS MWF histograms differed considerably from those of controls, however, differences did not mirror those observed in DTI histograms.