In Vivo Evidence of Susceptibility Anisotropy & Susceptibility Tensor Imaging of Human Brain

Wei Li¹, Bing Wu¹, Chunlei Liu^1,2

Previously, the magnetic susceptibility of brain tissue is generally assumed to be isotopic. Recently, emerging evidences from animal studies and in vitro brain specimens started to show the directionality of susceptibility. In this study, we demonstrated the evidence of magnetic susceptibility anisotropy from in vivo human brain by comparing susceptibility map with the diffusion tensor imaging results and comparing susceptibility obtained from different orientations. Further, the susceptibility tensor is calculated, which shows varied gray and white matter contrast among the three principal eigenvalues. These results provide convincing evidences that the magnetic susceptibility of in vivo human brain is anisotropic.