Abstract #1091

Normally Appearing White Matter of Subjects with Multiple Sclerosis Probed by Magnetization Transfer and Rotating Frame Relaxation Methods

Silvia Mangia¹, Adam Carpenter², Andy Tyan¹, Timo Liimatainen³, Michael Garwood¹, Shalom Michaeli¹

¹CMRR - Dept. of Radiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States; ²Dept. of Neurology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States; ³A.I.Virtanen Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, PL, Finland

In this study we implemented the inversion-prepared Magnetization Transfer (MT) protocol and rotating frame relaxation methods, including adiabatic T1rho and T2rho, to characterize the normally appearing white matter (NAWM) of the brain of nine patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and seven healthy controls of similar age. Statistically significant differences of NMR parameters between patients and controls were observed for T1sat in the MT protocol, but not for the MT ratio or adiabatic T1rho and T2rho. We conclude that the inversion-prepared MT protocol is a robust and sensitive approach to detect abnormalities in the NAWM of MS patients.