In this study, we hypothesized that a GRE phase can be a potential indicator of annulus fibrosus integrity, because of its high sensitivity to micro-structural tissue change. With this hypothesis, we investigate the feasibility of GRE phase in the assessment of intervertebral disc degeneration in the lumbar spine. Ex vivo animal disk samples and nine human subjects were scanned and the high-pass filtered phase images were evaluated. For both ex vivo and in vivo experiments, distinctive phase contrasts were observed in the annulus fibrosus of the normal intervertebral discs.
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