Contrast Kinetic Model-based GRASP Reconstruction for Small Animal Imaging at 7T

In this study, we propose a contrast kinetic model-based GRASP (mGRASP) method which can improve the spatial image quality as well as temporal characteristics of DCE-MRI. The proposed mGRASP method was assessed with 9L rat glioma model and GL261 mouse glioma model in an Active Contrast Encoding (ACE)-MRI experiment which simultaneously measures the pre-contrast T1 and contrast kinetic model parameters including intracellular water lifetime. The results show that mGRASP provides improved image quality and temporal patterns compared to GRASP.