Hendrikus Joseph Alphons Crooijmans1, Klaus Scheffler1, Oliver Bieri1
1Radiological Physics, University of Basel Hospital, Basel, BS, Switzerland
The transversal relaxation time (T2) found by means of two phase-cycled variable nutation steady-state free precession measurements analysis (DESPOT2) is subject to magnetization transfer (MT) effects when imaging tissues. To explore this possible effect, human brain is measured with a balanced SSFP sequence using several RF pulse durations and compared the results with a multi-contrast spin echo reference T2 measurement. It is found that MT can have a severe influence on the found T2 value.