Technology Research & Development #2
Quantitative Multi-Modality MRI at 3T and 7T

Principal Investigator: Peter van Zijl, PhD

The discovery of tissue biomarkers that can provide early and more specific information regarding physiological or metabolic changes can be seen as the holy grail of clinical imaging. The availability of such biomarkers is one of the main issues that we are continuously being inquired about by our driving biomedical projects, which study such topics as pediatric brain development, cerebral palsy (CP), X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (X-ALD), Alzheimer's Disease (AD), Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Huntington's Disease (HD), and brain tumors. Our overall goal is therefore to develop MRI methodologies at 3T and 7T that can provide the quantitative biomarkers needed by our DBPs. Examples of these are magnetization transfer constants (both exchange transfer and cross-relaxation based), magnetic susceptibility constants derived from frequency maps (Figure), and cerebral blood volume.

Some research highlights from TR&D2 are:

• Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping
• MRI of Cellular Protein Properties

Processed phase images from a gradient echo at 7T can produce frequency maps that directly correspond to the local susceptibility of structures.