Study of Longitudinal Relaxation Time Multi Echo Multi Planar (T1 MEMP) and Diffusion Weighted Imaging (DWI) on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Image

Abstract

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is an imaging technique for the human body cross-section, which utilizes electromagnetic radiations in the form of radio frequency. The MRI imaging technique is relatively complex, since the resulted images depend on many parameters, including Time Repetition (TR) and Time Echo (TE). This research is aimed to analyze the selection of TR and TE parameters, as well as to analyze the differences of signal intensity on White Matter (WM) tissue, Gray Matter (GM) tissue, and Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) of T1 MEMP and DWI images in the human brain. The obtained results showed that T1 MEMP images had short TR value (400–500 ms) and short TE value (13 ms), while DWI images had a b-value = 1,000 s/mm2 with long TR value (7,000 ms) and long TE value (80–90 ms). The resulted signal intensity on WM tissue, GM tissue, and CSF was measured based on gray value distribution using RadiAnt DICOM Viewer version 2.2.9.10728 (64 bit) and ENVI version 4.5 software. The results showed that the average of gray value distribution on T1 MEMP images were 46.5–66.5 for GM tissue, 67.5–94 for WM tissue, and 18.9–45.5 for CSF, while the average of gray value distribution on DWI images were 178–255 for GM tissue, 92.1–177 for WM tissue, and 31.5–91.1 for CSF. Hence, the WM tissue appeared clearer by using T1 MEMP images and the GM tissue appeared clearer by using DWI images.