Jeffrey William Barker1,
2, Kyongtae Ty Bae1, Sung-Hong Park, 13
1Radiology,
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; 2Bioengineering,
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; 3Bio and
Brain Engineering, Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology,
Daejeon, Yuseong-gu, Korea
We present a new technique for magnetization transfer (MT) ratio imaging that utilizes interslice MT effects inherent to multislice bSSFP imaging to generate MT contrast, which was controlled via an interslice delay (0-8s). We validated the source of contrast on a 4% agar phantom and saline phantom control. We also demonstrated the feasibility of in vivo MTR imaging by acquiring images in the brain of healthy normal volunteers (N = 5, age 24-49). Agar phantom images were homogeneous, and control images were free of contamination. Mean MTR values from all subjects for white and gray matter regions were (31.71.0)% and (21.71.2)%, respectively.