Effects of Turboprop Diffusion Tensor Imaging Acquisition Parameters on the Noise of Fractional Anisotropy

Ashish A. Tamhane¹, Konstantinos Arfanakis¹

The goal of this study was to investigate the effect of the number of blades, echo-train length (ETL), turbo-factor, and number of diffusion directions on the noise of fractional anisotropy (FA) in Turboprop diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). It was shown that the range of FA standard deviation (std_FA) values for different tensor orientations was lower when more diffusion directions were used. Additionally, std_FA decreased for an increasing number of blades, lower ETL, and lower turbo-factor. Hence, in Turboprop-DTI, optimal FA noise characteristics can be achieved by increasing the number of diffusion directions and blades, and decreasing the ETL and turbo-factor.