Susceptibility effects in porous media in the presence of flow

J Magn Reson Imaging. 1993 Sep-Oct;3(5):794-9. doi: 10.1002/jmri.1880030516.

Abstract

Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of microvascular flow is an important topic in biomedicine because it permits access to the functional state of a biologic system. The internal heterogeneous magnetic field due to susceptibility differences within tissues is one of the factors that can affect signal intensity. A glass bead phantom simulating a porous medium was used to experimentally study the effect of the internal magnetic field on MR flow measurements. A physical model was developed to simulate the paths of the moving spins and the local magnetic field distribution in the medium to estimate the signal intensity with spin-phase analysis. The susceptibility variation inside the glass bead phantom was estimated by comparing the simulation results with the experimental data. Experiments were also performed with a tissue-simulating phantom, and the results indicated that the effect of the internal field inhomogeneity on in vivo microvascular flow measurements was negligible.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Computer Simulation
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging*
  • Models, Structural
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Porosity
  • Rheology*