An initial exploration of spiral imaging for quantitative fetal T2* mapping on a low-cost low-field MRI scanner

Fetal MRI is an important complementary technique to ultrasound to monitor fetal health. Low-field MRI benefits from reduced distortion, increased B1 homogeneity, wider bore sizes for maintained field homogeneity and longer T2*. The latter is particularly beneficial for single-shot techniques as it allows more flexible and longer read-out strategies. This abstract explores, for the first time, spiral read-out for fetal brain T2* relaxometry and offers preliminary quantitative fetal brain T2* results. Next steps include further exploration of flexible read-out strategies such as undersampled interleaved spirals to work towards higher temporal resolution and motion robustness.