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Updated: Jun 26, 2025
Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging in the Analysis of Neurodegenerative Diseases
Published on: July 28, 2013
Diffusion tensor brain imaging at 0.55T: A feasibility study
Hao-Ting Kung1, Sophia X Cui2, Jonas T Kaplan3
1Signal and Image Processing Institute, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Purpose:
To investigate the feasibility of diffusion tensor brain imaging at 0.55T with comparisons against 3T.
Methods:
Diffusion tensor imaging data with 2 mm isotropic resolution was acquired on a cohort of five healthy subjects using both 0.55T and 3T scanners. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the 0.55T data was improved using a previous SNR-enhancing joint reconstruction method that jointly reconstructs the entire set of diffusion weighted images from k-space using shared-edge constraints. Quantitative diffusion tensor parameters were estimated and compared across field strengths. We also performed a test-retest assessment of repeatability at each field strength.
Results:
After applying SNR-enhancing joint reconstruction, the diffusion tensor parameters obtained from 0.55T data were strongly correlated ( ) with those obtained from 3T data. Test-retest analysis showed that SNR-enhancing reconstruction improved the repeatability of the 0.55T diffusion tensor parameters.
Conclusion:
High-resolution in vivo diffusion MRI of the human brain is feasible at 0.55T when appropriate noise-mitigation strategies are applied.
