Magnetic resonance amide proton transfer imaging is a novel technical to detect the concentration and viability of protein in vivo. Currently, amide proton transfer (APT) imaging is commonly implemented by the echo planar imaging (EPI) sequence with a series of pre-saturation pulses. However, EPI images suffer from image distortion and signal decay in higher field MR (magnetic resonance) system. In this paper, we proposed to replace EPI with the fast gradient echo sequence for APT imaging. Specifically, the APT data were acquired by a series of pre-saturation pulses with different offset frequency following a fast gradient echo readout with small flip angle. The APT images were then obtained with field inhomogeneity correction. Experimental results show that the images are free of distortion and the quantitative analysis of APT ratio with the concentration of amide proton exhibits good consistency.
Citing format GUO Wensha, ZHANG Na, ZOU Chao, et al. Amide Proton Transfer Imaging with Fast Gradient Echo Sequence[J]. Journal of Integration Technology,2016,5(4):75-80