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Three-Dimensional Efficient Myelin-Weighted Imaging Utilizing Direct Visualization of Short Transverse Relaxation
Se-Hong Oh1,2, Gawon Lee1, Jongho Lee3
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Yongin, Republic of Korea.
Human Brain Mapping
|August 22, 2025
Summary
A new 3D ViSTa MRI technique offers whole-brain myelin imaging, overcoming limitations of previous methods. This faster, more robust approach shows high correlation with conventional myelin water imaging, aiding clinical applications.
Area of Science:
- Neuroimaging
- Biomarkers
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Background:
- Measuring brain myelin concentration is crucial for neuroscience and clinical practice.
- Myelin water imaging (MWI) is a sensitive MRI biomarker for myelin, but conventional methods face challenges with ill-conditioned fitting, noise, and artifacts in vivo.
- Two-dimensional ViSTa (2D ViSTa) improved myelin-weighted imaging but was limited to single-slice acquisition.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and evaluate a whole-brain 3D ViSTa magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequence for myelin-weighted imaging.
- To assess the feasibility of 3D ViSTa for measuring myelin distribution in white matter.
- To compare the performance of 3D ViSTa with conventional MWI.
Main Methods:
- A novel 3D ViSTa sequence was implemented using a 3D segmented echo planar imaging (EPI) sequence with slice-selective inversion radiofrequency pulses.
- Whole-brain myelin distribution was measured using both conventional MWI and the proposed 3D ViSTa method.
- Pseudo-quantification of apparent myelin water fraction (MWF) was achieved by normalizing ViSTa images with a proton density (PD)-weighted image.
Main Results:
- The 3D ViSTa method successfully acquired whole-brain myelin-weighted images (FOV = 240 × 240 × 128 mm³) in under 8 minutes with 1.5 × 1.5 × 4 mm³ resolution.
- The technique demonstrated robustness, requiring minimal post-processing.
- Voxel-wise analysis revealed a high spatial similarity between 3D ViSTa and conventional MWI, with a mean correlation coefficient of 0.74 ± 0.03 across five subjects.
Conclusions:
- The proposed 3D ViSTa sequence provides a fast and efficient whole-brain myelin-weighted imaging solution.
- The high correlation with conventional MWI validates its capability in capturing myelin-related contrast.
- 3D ViSTa with pseudo-quantification is a promising tool for clinical applications where absolute myelin quantification is not essential.
