Revital Nossin-Manor1,2, Omer Bar-Yosef3,
Margot J. Taylor1,2, Elizabeth J. Donner3,4, John G.
Sled5,6
1Diagnostic Imaging, the
Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada; 2Neurosciences
& Mental Health, Research Institute, the Hospital for Sick Children,
Toronto, ON, Canada; 3Neurology, the Hospital for Sick Children,
Toronto, ON, Canada; 4Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto,
Toronto, ON, Canada; 5Physiology Experimental Medicine, Research
Institute, the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada; 6Medical
Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Increases in magnetization transfer ratio (MTR) and shortening of relaxometry values manifest maturational changes, which reflect distinct biological properties of tissue that need not be related. To investigate these markers of maturation we correlated MTR and T1 measurements using scans from fifteen neonates born between 24 and 31 weeks gestational age, scanned after birth. Six structures representing different stages of myelination in the immature brain were segmented. MTR varied linearly with T1, with similar slopes for all regions studied but significantly different intercepts. Interestingly, a different order of structures was demonstrated for MTR and T1 values.