• Robert L Barry and Seth A Smith.
• Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts.
• Magn Reson Med. 2019 Aug 1; 82 (2): 743-748.

PurposeTo measure the transverse relaxation time T2* in healthy human cervical spinal cord gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) at 3T.MethodsThirty healthy volunteers were recruited. Axial images were acquired using an averaged multi-echo gradient-echo (mFFE) T2*-weighted sequence with 5 echoes. We used the signal equation for an mFFE sequence with constant dephasing gradients after each echo to jointly estimate the spin density and T2* for each voxel.ResultsNo global difference in T2* was observed between all GM (41.3 ± 5.6 ms) and all WM (39.8 ± 5.4 ms). No significant differences were observed between left (43.2 ± 6.8 ms) and right (43.4 ± 5.5 ms) ventral GM, left (38.3 ± 6.1 ms) and right (38.6 ± 6.5 ms) dorsal GM, and left (39.4 ± 5.8 ms) and right (40.3 ± 5.8 ms) lateral WM. However, significant regional differences were observed between ventral (43.4 ± 5.7 ms) and dorsal (38.4 ± 6.0 ms) GM (p < 0.05), as well as between ventral (42.9 ± 6.5 ms) and dorsal (37.9 ± 6.2 ms) WM (p < 0.05). In analyses across slices, inferior T2* was longer than superior T2* in GM (44.7 ms vs. 40.1 ms; p < 0.01) and in WM (41.8 ms vs. 35.9 ms; p < 0.01).ConclusionsSignificant differences in T2* are observed between ventral and dorsal GM, ventral and dorsal WM, and superior and inferior GM and WM. There is no evidence for bilateral asymmetry in T2* in the healthy cord. These values of T2* in the spinal cord are notably lower than most reported values of T2* in the cortex.© 2019 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

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