Lauri Juhani Lehto1, 2, Alejandra Sierra1, Curt Corum2, Djaudat Idiyatullin2, Asla Pitknen1, Michael Garwood2, Olli Grhn1
1A. I. Virtanen Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Eastern Finland, Finland; 2Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, University of Minnesota, United States
Many diseases involve myelin loss in white matter. Myelin and myelin water has been related to short T2 components, that can be invisible to conventional MRI sequences due to relatively long TE. SWIFT, an almost zero acquisition delay sequence can detect these components. SWIFT was used to study dysmyelination in traumatic brain injury rat model ex vivo. Changes in TBI animals were detected through normal, long T2 and subtraction images. Although SWIFT does not have a TE, it has been shown to have phase contrast that was also investigated. White matter changes were detected in several structures confirmed by histology.