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
For our newly developed MT ratio (MTR) imaging, we assessed characteristics of interslice MT signals, that are inherent to multi-slice bSSFP imaging for varying flip angle and phase encoding (PE) order. We compared <I>in vivo</I> MTR values to two-pool model simulations. Overall, MTR and SNR values increased with flip angle. Centric PE images showed higher MTR values, higher SNR, and better WM/GM contrast. Linear PE image contrast was influenced by relaxation effects. Simulations agreed well with <I>in vivo data</I>. Our study assessed characteristic factors of the interslice MTR method to be considered for MTR imaging in the brain.