Previous studies have demonstrated that at high fields (3T and beyond), the difference of R1ρ between low and high spin-locking fields (ΔR1ρ) may reflect chemical exchange processes in biological tissues. This study aimed to investigate the possibility of using ΔR1ρ to assess the content of exchangeable protons in myelin in white matter by comparing ΔR1ρ with PSR (macromolecular to free pool size ratio from magnetization transfer imaging). The results show that ΔR1ρ and PSR have a much stronger correlation in white matter than in gray matter, inferring that ΔR1ρ might have a potential to evaluate myelin integrity.
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