Abstract #3452

Analysis of signal and contrast in a multi-echo gradient-echo sequence of the lumbosacral cord: recommendations for number of echoes and averages

Silvan Büeler¹, Patrick Freund^2,3,4,5, Martina Liechti¹, and Gergely David^1,2

¹Department of Neuro-Urology, Balgrist University Hospital, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, ²Spinal Cord Injury Center, Balgrist University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, ³Department of Brain Repair and Rehabilitation, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom, ⁴Department of Neurophysics, , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany, ⁵Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom

In this study, we aimed to provide recommendations on the number of echoes and averages when imaging the lumbosacral spinal cord using a multi-echo gradient-echo sequence. We found that while more echoes increase the white matter/cerebrospinal fluid contrast, the gray matter/white matter contrast plateaus at 3 echoes. Also, the signal and contrast-to-noise ratios increased only minimally after 6 averages. Overall, we recommend a minimum of 3 and maximum of 4 echoes as an optimal trade-off between segmentability and artifact level, and 6 signal averages (or measurements) for robust segmentations.

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