Naoyuki Takei¹, R Marc Lebel², Suryanarayanan Kaushik³, Shohei Fujita^4,5, Issei Fukunaga⁴, Shigeki Aoki⁴, Suchandrima Banerjee⁶, and Tetsuya Wakayama^1
1GE Healthcare, Tokyo, Japan, ²GE Healthcare, Calagary, AB, Canada, ³GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI, United States, ⁴Radiology, Juntendo University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan, ⁵Radiology, The University of Tokyo Graduate School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan, ⁶GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, United States

We combine advanced acquisition and reconstruction techniques for highly accelerated 3D brain imaging. A hybrid acquisition called META (Mixed Echo Train Acquisition) generates 3D T1W, T2W and FLAIR contrasts simultaneously and with high SNR efficiency. A 3D deep learning reconstruction (AIR Recon DL) reduces image noise, reduces artifacts, and enhances resolution relative to conventional reconstructions, solving the trade-off between SNR, scan time, and resolution. META with the DL Recon achieved 1mm isotropic T1W, T2W and FLAIR images within 4 minutes. These combinations are well suited in high resolution volumetric brain imaging.

Wenjin Bian¹, Jinliang Niu¹, Jianting Li¹, and Wenqi Wu^1
1Department of Imaging, The Second Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China

    The metal artifacts caused by metal copings in porcelain fused to metal (PFM) always impair MRI quality. This study aimed to compare MRI quality between common FSE T₂WI with PROPELLER FSE T₂WI for patients with  various metal copings. Fifty-nine subjects with the most commonly used PFM were recruited and imaged at 1.5T MRI system. By comparing the image quality and artifact areas, we found PROPELLER technique was less sensitive to metal artifacts than common FSE. It can be proposed the PROPELLER FSE T₂WI to be used as clinical MRI examination of oral cavity and maxillofacial part for patients with PFM.

Junjiao Hu¹, Huiting Zhang², Hu Guo³, Thomas Benkert⁴, Shan Jiang¹, Weijun Situ¹, and Jun Liu^1
1Department of Radiology,The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China, ²MR Scientific Marketing, Siemens Healthineers, Wuhan, China, ³MR Application, Siemens Healthineers, Changsha, China, ⁴MR Application Predevelopment, Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Erlangen, Germany

In this study, image quality and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values of conventional single-shot spin-echo echo-planar imaging (SS-EPI) and prototype integrated slice-specific dynamic shimming EPI (ishim_EPI) diffusion-weighted imaging in patients with Crohn’s disease were compared. Results showed that ishim_EPI had better image quality, including fewer distortion artifacts and clearer edges of the lesions. High correlation and good agreement of ADC value were found between the two techniques. Ishim_EPI DWI technique is recommended to replace conventional SS_EPI for the detection of lesions in patients with Crohn’s disease and further in routine intestinal examination.

Kosuke Morita¹, Masami Yoneyama², Hiroshi Hamano², Shogo Fukuda¹, Hiroyuki Uetani³, Akira Sasao³, Takeshi Nakaura³, Seitaro Oda³, Masahiro Hatemura¹, and Toshinori Hirai^3
1Radiology, Kumamoto university, kumamoto-shi, Japan, ²Philips Japan, minato-ku, Japan, ³Diagnostic Radiology, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kumamoto university, kumamoto-shi, Japan

CS-Spiral T2WI was good image quality for midbrain. We used 3 sequences; CS-Spiral, conventional-Turbo Spine Echo and neuromelanin image for six healthy volunteers. In this study, we used Compressed Sensing with Sensitivity Encoding (CS-Spiral) technology for SPIRAL acquisition to perform midbrain T2WI for neurodegenerative diseases with clinically usefulness acquisition time. It is expected that parameter settings will provide more clinically useful image quality.

Katsumi Kose¹, Ryoichi Kose¹, and Yasuhiko Terada^2
1MRIsimulations Inc., Tokyo, Japan, ²University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan

The magnetization transfer effect of the QRAPMASTER sequence was investigated using phantom experiments and Bloch simulations. The phantom consisted of MnCl₂ aqueous solution with various proton T₁ values and raw chicken breast meat. T₁ values of the MnCl₂ solution measured using the QRAPMASTER sequence showed excellent linear relation with those measured with the standard method. However, T₁ of the chicken breast sample deviated far from the linear regression line. The results suggested that the T₁ values of biological samples measured by the QRAPMASTER sequence are underestimated compared to those measured by the standard method.

Yung-Chieh Chen¹, Duen-Pang Kuo^1,2, and Cheng-Yu Chen^1
1Department of Medical Imaging, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, ²Translational Imaging Research Center, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan

Morphologic neuroimaging in children can be challenging and time-sensitive during routine clinical imaging workflow due to patient discomfort, susceptibility to motion, and frequent need of sedation. Our study quantitatively assessed the imaging performance of ultra-fast T1 3D magnetization-prepared rapid acquisition gradient echo (MPRAGE) using wave-controlled aliasing with parallel imaging (wave-CAIPI) sequence for accelerated pediatric brain MR imaging via whole brain wide analysis under different MR imaging parameter settings with and without contrast administration. Our results show that wave-CAIPI can deliver comparable image quality to standard MPRAGE with significantly reduced scan times with optimized imaging parameters.

Zhenhong Liao¹ and Xiaoyong Zhang^2
1Department of Radiology, Deyang People's Hospital, Deyang, China, ²Philips Healthcare, Chengdu, China

Three-dimensional T1-weighted (T1W) Dixon as morphologic sequence has very high clinical value for the metastatic screening [1]. However, conventional multiplanar (CMP) T1W Dixon is limited by the long acquisition to achieve high resolution whole-body imaging. Therefore, this study aimed to achieve rapid whole-body high-resolution isotropic 3D T1W Dixon examination by Compressed SENSE (CSI T1W Dixon) and to investigate its feasibility in assessing bone metastases by comparing image quality and diagnosis performance with conventional multiplanar (CMP) (coronal, sagittal, axial planes) T1W Dixon scan. The results of this study suggested that high-resolution CSI T1W Dixon has potential to replace CMP T1W Dixon sequence for the assessment of bone metastasis in clinics with higher image quality and diagnostic capacity.

Taishan Kang¹, Liangjie Lin², Zhigang Wu³, and Jian Wu^4
1Magnetic Resonance Center, Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated to Xiamen University, Xiamen, China, ²Philips Healthcare, Beijing, China, ³Philips Healthcare, Shenzhen, China, ⁴Department of Electronic Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China

TOF-MRA is a routine noninvasive method that does not require intravenous contrast agents or exposure to radiation for brain artery assessment. However, artifacts are prone to appear in conventional TOF-MRA under situations of complicated blood vessels or changes in blood flow; and the display of distal arterioles is also not good. The spiral acquisition technique has been previously introduced for scan acceleration of TOF-MRA, while here we compared the performance of conventional and spiral TOF-MRA under similar scan duration. Results indicated that spiral TOF-MRA provide better quality MRA images, and may help improve the clinical diagnosis of vascular problems.

Pengxuan Bai¹, Linlin Zhu¹, Yuying Feng¹, Na Zhang¹, Yao Ge¹, Congcong Liu¹, Jian Yang¹, Yichu He², Feng Shi², Xiaocheng Wei³, and Chao Jin^1
1The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, 710061, Xi'an, China, ²Department of Research and Development, Shanghai United Imaging Intelligence Co., Ltd., Shanghai, China，200232, Shanghai, China, ³GE Healthcare，Beijing， China，100176, Beijing, China

The specialization of cerebral lateralization and hemispheric function is common in adults. Existing studies have shown that there is already left and right asymmetry in the fetal brain [1]. The study of normal brain structure and development information helps to identify abnormal developmental trajectories. This study takes healthy full-term newborns as the research object, aiming to explore the situation of cerebral asymmetry in the neonatal period and the relationship with neurobehavioral. Meanwhile expand our understanding of normal early brain development, and provide important insights for further revealing the inner connection between brain lateralization and certain diseases in the future.

Tao Gong^1,2, Steve C.N. Hui^3,4, Helge J. Zöllner^3,4, Mark Britton^5,6,7, Yulu Song^3,4, Aaron T. Gudmundson⁸, Kathleen Hupfeld⁹, Eric Porges^5,6,7, Georg Oeltzschner^3,4, Weibo Chen¹⁰, Guangbin Wang^1,2, and Richard Edden^3,4
1Departments of Radiology, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, Shandong, 250021, China, Jinan, China, ²Departments of Radiology, Shandong Provincial Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong, 250021, China, Jinan, China, ³The Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA, Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁴F.M. Kirby Research Center for Functional Brain Imaging, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA, Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁵Center for Cognitive Aging and Memory, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA, Gainesville, FL, United States, ⁶McKnight Brain Research Foundation, University of Florida, FL, USA, Gainesville, FL, United States, ⁷Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA, Gainesville, FL, United States, ⁸Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, University of California, Irvine,USA., Irvine, CA, United States, ⁹Department of Applied Physiology and Kinesiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA, Gainesville, FL, United States, ¹⁰Philips Healthcare, Shanghai, China, Shanghai, CA, China

The metabolic timecourse of healthy aging is not well-established, in part due to diversity of quantification methodology. This study recruited a large structured cross-sectional cohort throughout adulthood to investigate metabolic changes as a function of age, and applied consensus-recommended quantification methods. Positive age correlations in tCho, tCr, and mI were observed for CSO and PCC, while none was found for tNAA, Glu or Glx in either region. PCC GABA decreased with age, CSO Scyllo increased, and we observed higher PCC Scyllo for female subjects. Our results establish a metabolic timecourse of healthy aging, as a normative foundation for future work.

Shi Su^1,2, Zheyuan Yi^1,2, Yujiao Zhao^1,2, Linfang Xiao^1,2, Ziming Huang^1,2, Jiahao Hu^1,2, Junhao Zhang^1,2, Vick Lau^1,2, Christopher Man^1,2, Alex T.L. Leong^1,2, and Ed X. Wu^1,2
1Laboratory of Biomedical Imaging and Signal Processing, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China, ²Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Wave encoding offers high acceleration in parallel imaging by exploring the coil sensitivity variations in the readout dimension. However, typically preset wave gradients (i.e., sinusoidal trajectory) have never been optimized for specific receiver array coil, thus intrinsically limiting the maximum acceleration factor. We propose to optimize the gradient trajectory in a coil sensitivity specific manner by minimizing the squared L2-norm of off-diagonal elements in encoding correlation matrix. To guarantee an allowed maximum gradient slew rate, a bandlimited constraint is also introduced in optimization. This procedure leads to significant improvements in g-factor map and artifact reduction, especially at very high acceleration.

Yingjie Feng¹, Junbo Zhao¹, Huai Chen², Xiaoyin Xu³, and Min Zhang^1
1Zhejiang Univerisity, Hangzhou, China, ²The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China, ³Brigham and Women's Hospital，Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States

Malignant brain tumor affects a large number of patients and often have poor prognosis and low response to therapeutics. An indicator of the progress of brain tumor and its response to treatment is the DNA repair protein, O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT). As such, accurate assessment of MGMT is of great clinical significance. Biospy is not only invasive but also has the risk of undersampling the tumorous tissue. We presented a novel deep learning model that uses multi-MRI modalities to assess the expression of MGMT in glioblastoma (GBM) patients. Results showed that the model can achieve good performance.

Leighton BARNDEN¹, Kiran Thapaliya¹, Donald Staines¹, Jiasheng SU¹, and Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik^1
1NCNED, Griffith University, Southport, QLD, Australia

Diffusion metrics from brain Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) characterise axonal structure and include fractional anisotropy (FA), axial diffusivity (AD) and radial diffusivity (RD). Cross-sectional studies of DTI metric maps apply voxel-based statistical analysis of the metric values generated by standard MRTrix and FSL algorithms and assumes that the global values for these metrics are consistent across the populations analysed. This study found that inter-subject global levels vary appreciably for the full range of diffusion metrics. Removal of the variance associated with the global levels markedly improved the statistical inference for differences in a study of ME/CFS patients and healthy controls.

xucong wang¹, bing chen², jian li², zhen hua wang ¹, and Xiaocheng Wei^3
1ningxia medical university, yinchuan, China, ²Ningxia Medical University General Hospital, yinchuan, China, ³GE Healthcare, Beijing, China

To investigate the application of quantitative magnetic resonance imaging in the quantitative measurement of gadolinium deposition in the deep cerebellar nucleus (DCN) of rats.The absolute correlation coefficients between DCN T1 value and DCN gadolinium concentration, and DCN/ cerebrar cortex T1WI signal intensity ratio and DCN gadolinium concentration were 0.925 (P<0.001) and 0.849 (P<0.001).These results suggest that quantitative magnetic resonance imaging has a good expression of T1 relaxation time in the dentate nucleus region of cerebellum, which provides a basis for quantitative magnetic resonance estimation of clinical gadolinium deposition.

xucong wang¹, bing chen², jian li², zhen hua wang ¹, and Xiaocheng Wei^3
1ningxia medical university, yinchuan, China, ²Ningxia Medical University General Hospital, yinchuan, China, ³GE Healthcare, Beijing, China

To investigate the changes of intracranial gadolinium deposition in rats with linear gadolinium deposition after continuous injection of large ring gadolinium contrast agent. The intracranial gadolinium deposition in these rats increased but was relatively small. The DCN T1 value measured on MRI ensemble sequence scan images was significantly negatively correlated with gadolinium concentration in cerebellar DCN. (ALL P values were less than 0.05).