High-field diffusion tensor imaging of mouse brain in vivo using single-shot STEAM MRI

Information about the microstructural organization of cerebral white matter that is accessible by magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) gains increasing importance for studies of animal brain. Particular challenges occur for in vivo conditions as well as at high magnetic fields. Here, we have employed a diffusion-weighted (DW) single-shot STEAM MRI sequence for DTI of mouse brain in vivo at 7 T. The approach exploits the increased longitudinal magnetization and prolonged T1 relaxation times of water protons at higher magnetic field strengths without suffering from susceptibility-induced artifacts. When compared to studies at 2.35 T, half Fourier DW STEAM MRI at 7 T yielded a substantial gain in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) that could be invested either in a reduction of the measurement time or an increase of the spatial resolution. Thus, for a measurement time of 3 h, DTI with a voxel size of 117 μm × 117 μm × 720 μm not only resulted in high-quality maps of the fractional anisotropy and main diffusion direction (MDD), but also allowed for fiber tracking of major mouse brain structures in vivo.