QUANTITATIVE SINGLE IMAGE-BASED MAGNETIZATION TRANSFER WEIGHTED IMAGING USING AN INTER-SUBJECT NORMALIZATION REFERENCE WITHIN THE IMAGE

摘要

Disclosed is a system and method for generating quantitative imagery of demyelination in the spinal cord. The method includes acquiring a mangetization transfer weighted (MTw) MR image of the spinal column (210), identifying a reference region of interest within the image (215) corresponding to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), averaging the signal intensity corresponding to the reference region of interest (220), and computing a ratio, on a voxel-by-voxel basis, of the signal intensity of each voxel by the avearaged reference signal intensity. In doing so, normalized MTw images are obtained such that detrimental artifacts such as motion-induced errors, coil loading, and RF coil sensitivity variations are obviated.