Guangqiang Geng1, Roland Henry2, Caroline Rae1, 3
1Neuroscience Research Australia, Sydney, NSW, Australia; 2Departments of Neurology, Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Bioengineering, UCSF, San Francisco, CA, United States; 3UNSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with phase array coils and an increased number of receiver channels improves signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). This would benefit imaging methodologies sensitive to noise such as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). In order to verify the improved imaging performance with increased acquisition channels, we quantify the uncertainty of DTI measurements for anisotropy through statistical analysis of human brain data. We have proved that the uncertainties of DTI results are consistently reduced with 32-channel coil compared to 8 channels, and this will potentially reduce the necessary scan time and SAR while maintaining the reliability of DTI measurements.