3D MR fingerprinting for dynamic contrast-enhanced imaging of whole mouse brain

Motivation: Quantitative MRI with sufficient spatiotemporal resolution for mouse brain imaging remains underdeveloped, making whole-brain T1/T2 mapping and dynamic contrast agent tracking infeasible. Goal(s): To develop a 3D MR fingerprinting (MRF) approach for fast, whole-brain T1 and T2 mapping, enabling quantitative tracking of contrast agents in the mouse brain. Approach: We designed a 3D MRF sequence optimized for pre- and post-contrast mouse brain imaging at 9.4T, using GPU-accelerated low-rank reconstruction for robust and efficient data processing. Results: Our method achieved unprecedented T1 and T2 mapping at 192×192×500 μm³, enabling dynamic tracking of contrast agent in cerebrospinal fluid with 4.3-minute temporal resolution. Impact: This 3D MRF method enables unprecedented quantitative tracking of contrast agents throughout the mouse brain, significantly advancing our ability to study cerebrospinal fluid dynamics and potentially transforming preclinical investigation of neurodegenerative diseases and therapeutic interventions.