Abstract #4913

Myelin-sensitive imaging of the optic chiasm and optic nerve at 3T using inhomogeneous magnetization transfer (ihMT) with high B1 pulses

Ece Ercan¹, Fang Yu¹, Ivan E. Dimitrov^2,3, Gopal Varma⁴, David C. Alsop⁴, Robert E. Lenkinski^1,2, and Elena Vinogradov^1,2

¹Department of Radiology, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States, ²Advanced Imaging Research Center, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States, ³Philips Healthcare, Gainesville, FL, United States, ⁴Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States

Inhomogeneous magnetization transfer (ihMT) imaging is a novel enhanced magnetization transfer contrast, which has been shown to originate from long-lived dipolar couplings in the tissue (e.g. dipolar couplings between the methylene molecules of the myelin phospholipid bilayer). In this study, we optimized an ihMT scan protocol for imaging the optic nerve and chiasm for the first time. This method may potentially be used for quantitative evaluation of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), as well as other diseases affecting the visual pathway.

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