Fritz, Francisco J;
Mordhorst, Laurin;
Ashtarayeh, Mohammad;
Periquito, Joao;
Pohlmann, Andreas;
Morawski, Markus;
Jaeger, Carsten;
... Mohammadi, Siawoosh; + view all
(2023)
Fiber-orientation independent component of R2* obtained from single-orientation MRI measurements in simulations and a post-mortem human optic chiasm.
Frontiers in Neuroscience
, 17
, Article 1133086. 10.3389/fnins.2023.1133086.
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Abstract
The effective transverse relaxation rate (R2*) is sensitive to the microstructure of the human brain like the g-ratio which characterises the relative myelination of axons. However, the fibre-orientation dependence of R2* degrades its reproducibility and any microstructural derivative measure. To estimate its orientation-independent part (R2,iso*) from single multi-echo gradient-recalled-echo (meGRE) measurements at arbitrary orientations, a second-order polynomial in time model (hereafter M2) can be used. Its linear time-dependent parameter, β1, can be biophysically related to R2,iso* when neglecting the myelin water (MW) signal in the hollow cylinder fibre model (HCFM). Here, we examined the performance of M2 using experimental and simulated data with variable g-ratio and fibre dispersion. We found that the fitted β1 can estimate R2,iso* using meGRE with long maximum-echo time (TEmax ≈ 54 ms), but not accurately captures its microscopic dependence on the g-ratio (error 84%). We proposed a new heuristic expression for β1 that reduced the error to 12% for ex vivo compartmental R2 values. Using the new expression, we could estimate an MW fraction of 0.14 for fibres with negligible dispersion in a fixed human optic chiasm for the ex vivo compartmental R2 values but not for the in vivo values. M2 and the HCFM-based simulations failed to explain the measured R2*-orientation-dependence around the magic angle for a typical in vivo meGRE protocol (with TEmax ≈ 18 ms). In conclusion, further validation and the development of movement-robust in vivo meGRE protocols with TEmax ≈ 54 ms are required before M2 can be used to estimate R2,iso* in subjects.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Fiber-orientation independent component of R2* obtained from single-orientation MRI measurements in simulations and a post-mortem human optic chiasm |
| Location: | Switzerland |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3389/fnins.2023.1133086 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2023.1133086 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2023 Fritz, Mordhorst, Ashtarayeh, Periquito, Pohlmann, Morawski, Jaeger, Niendorf, Pine, Callaghan, Weiskopf and Mohammadi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
| Keywords: | Effective transverse relaxation rate, biophysical model, R2*, orientation-independent R2*, myelin water fraction, g-ratio, fibre dispersion, multi-echo gradient recalled echo |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Imaging Neuroscience |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10177263 |
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