Abstract #3976

High-Resolution DTI Tractography of the Spinal Cord with Reduced-FOV Single-Shot EPI at 3T

Emine Ulku Saritas¹, Greg Zaharchuk², Ajit Shankaranarayanan³, Murat Aksoy², Roland Bammer², Nancy J. Fischbein², Maxwell Boakye⁴, Dwight G. Nishimura¹

¹Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States; ²Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States; ³Global Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, United States; ⁴Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States

There is much interest in extending diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) research to the spinal cord, whose connections are responsible for motor and sensory functions of the body. However, DTI of the spinal cord is limited by the need for high spatial-resolution, as well as the difficulties associated with susceptibility differences, field inhomogeneities (especially at 3T), and motion of the cord. A reduced field-of-view (FOV) method using a 2D echo-planar RF excitation has recently been shown to overcome these limitations and improve spinal cord diffusion-weighted imaging. This study addresses the application of this method to acquire high-resolution low-distortion DTI (including both fractional anisotropy (FA) maps and fiber tractography) of the spinal cord at 3T.