T1-weighting in Steady-State FLASH MRI-Diffusion Is Not Only Supportive but Mandatory for the Contrast.
Authors
Affiliations (4)
Affiliations (4)
- Institute of Neuroradiology, Uniklinikum Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany.
- Department of Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Engineering (AIBE), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany.
- Magnetic Resonance, Siemens Healthineers AG, Erlangen, Germany.
- Medical Physics, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
Abstract
FLASH imaging is widely assumed to produce a T<sub>1</sub>-weighted steady-state contrast using RF- and gradient-spoiling. We observed substantial overestimation of CSF signals in simulations, when diffusion was neglected and realistic proton density was applied. This work investigates the role of diffusion in steady-state FLASH contrast formation and its implications for simulation-based modeling and measurement. FLASH sequences were simulated using phase graph simulations using a synthetic brain phantom with and without diffusion and realistic PD values to show the contrast change. The impact of neglecting diffusion in synthetic training data was evaluated using a segmentation network trained on simulated data and tested on in vivo measurement. Experimental validation of the contrast change was performed using a 3D-printed brain phantom using silicone oil as a low-diffusivity compartment. Without diffusion, simulations showed CSF signal intensities higher than WM, resulting in a contrast change. Diffusion suppresses higher-order echoes in long T<sub>2</sub> tissues and is essential for achieving the T<sub>1</sub>-weighted steady-state contrast. A NN trained without diffusion fails to generalize to in vivo data and measurements with silicone oil compartments confirm the contrast changes in low-diffusivity media. Diffusion is essential for realistic FLASH simulations of long T<sub>2</sub> tissues such as CSF. Steady-state FLASH contrast arises from the interplay of RF-, gradient-spoiling, and "multi-TR-relaxation-spoiling" governed by T<sub>2</sub>-decay and diffusion effects. For many quadratic phase cycling schemes, diffusion is required to obtain realistic T<sub>1</sub>-weighted contrast in MR simulations and should not be neglected in simulations or simulation-based deep learning applications.