Methodology for the measurement and analysis of relaxation times in proton imaging.

Abstract Measurements of proton T 1 and T 2 were performed on GdCl 3 solutions (20 T 2 T 1 T 1 and T 2 weighted data acquisition (which we call “multiple saturation-recovery multiple-echo” (MSRME) were used. The relaxation data are compared to those obtained on a small bore NMR spectrometer operated at 1.5T. T 1 and T 2 values for the solutions were found to be the same within 10% for the two fields. Reproducibility of measurements of T 1 , T 2 and the unnormalized spin density of the solutions was better than 5%. Systematic errors, amenable to correction through calibration, are noted in the imager T 1 and T 2 values for some typical neural tissues at 1.5T and body tissue at 1.0T for human volunteers were obtained and are tabulated.