I have read with great interest the article by Hoch et al,1 in this issue of the American Journal of Neuroradiology describing an MR imaging protocol to discriminate the internal anatomy of the human brain stem. Their study provides a very nice illustration of one of the key strengths of MR imaging, in which multiple MR imaging contrast mechanisms/parameters can complement each other and provide an enhanced visualization of brain structures. In this particular study, the synergy of a recently proposed echo modulation curve (EMC) method for T2 mapping2 and the super-resolution track density imaging (TDI) method3 is shown to visualize many of the tracts and nuclear groups within the brain stem, to a level not previously shown before with in vivo 3T MR imaging. Most important, this combined protocol was achieved with a total acquisition time that is feasible for clinical investigations (though it relies on postprocessing methods that may be, so far, available only at large specialized centers, a limitation likely to be overcome in the future, with the widespread use of these methodologies).
展开▼
