High Resolution Whole Head 3D Susceptibility Mapping at 7T: A Comparison of Multi-Orientation and Single Orientation Methods

Samuel James Wharton¹, Richard Bowtell¹

Phase images generated using gradient echo techniques at high field show excellent contrast related to variation of magnetic susceptibility across brain tissues. Calculating susceptibility maps from phase data is made difficult by the ill-posed nature of the deconvolution problem which must be solved. Careful conditioning is therefore required. Here, we compare the performance of three conditioning strategies ((i) combination of data acquired at multiple orientations; (ii) k-space thresholding of data acquired at a single orientation; (iii) incorporation of structural information using corresponding modulus data) in the calculation of susceptibility maps from high-resolution phase images of the brain and a phantom.