Diffusion Imaging In Vivo with Whole-Body Gradient Amplitude of 65 MT/m

Ek Tsoon Tan¹, Wesley M. Skeffington¹, Juan Sabate¹, Bruce D. Collick², Song Chi¹, Rixin Lai¹, Christopher J. Hardy¹, Luca Marinelli¹, Thomas K. Foo¹

A higher performance gradient driver system was developed, capable of delivering gradient amplitude of 65 mT/m in a conventional whole-body MRI system. Imaging at 65 mT/m was compared against the standard 50 mT/m in diffusion MRI. Diffusion images were acquired in two human subjects at b-values of 1000-10000 sec/mm2. As compared to 50 mT/m, imaging with 65 mT/m provided SNR improvements of 7-20% in white matter.