Motivation: T1 and T2 relaxometry may provide valuable information for early detection and characterization of pathology at UHF but requires long scan times for large coverage and high-resolution. Goal(s): To enable fast simultaneous T1 and T2 mapping at 7T for the whole brain. Approach: The accelerated QuantoRAGE sequence used two scans with various T2 preparations and inversion times that were optimized using Cramér-Rao lower bound. A dictionary fitting model was then employed for T1 and T2 quantification. Results: QuantoRAGE showed feasibility for high-resolution T1 and T2 mapping in <7 minutes and provided values in good agreement with reference methods in phantom and healthy brains. Impact: QuantoRAGE allows for simultaneous T1 and T2 mapping of the whole brain at ultra-high field with high isotropic resolution and in less than 7 minutes, bringing quantitative MRI closer to clinical UHF applications.
Bonanno et al. (Tue,) studied this question.