Purpose or Case Report: Synthetic magnetic resonance imaging (SyMRI) is a new imaging technique that permits generating multiple contrast-weighted images based on relaxivity measurements of tissue properties in a single acquisition using a multi-echo, multi-delay saturation recovery spin-echo sequence of approximately 6 minutes.
Methods & Materials: Pictorial essay.
Results: The synthetic images can be generated post-acquisition from the parametric tissue maps (Basic SyMRI bundle includes T1W, T2W, PDW, T1W FLAIR, STIR, and T2W FLAIR. Advanced bundle includes PSIR, PSIR (vessel), and DIR. PSIR indicates phase-sensitive inversion recovery; STIR, short TI inversion recovery; DIR, double inversion recovery), which can be beneficial to reduce scan time and improve patient throughput. MRI brain segmentation and volume estimation of grey matter, white matter and cerebrospinal fluid are important for many neurological applications. Brain segmentation and volume estimation are important for pediatric clinical neurological studies and have many clinical applications from measuring and visualizing these tissues and their pathological changes to surgical planning and image-guided interventions. Qualitative assessments are routinely done by pediatric neuroradiologists however a reliable, rapid method of quantitative measurements is needed for accurate individual follow-up as well as quantitative comparison with reference groups. Based on relaxometry maps, synthetic magnetic resonance imaging can also perform automated brain tissue segmentation and myelin quantification without additional scan time.
Conclusions: The quantitative analysis may have implications for understanding and monitoring of the evolution of the maturation process. Similarly, the myelination process is vitally important to central nervous system functioning. Measuring myelin volume could provide relevant information for the diagnosis and treatment of patients with myelination disorders. In this presentation, we will review SyMRI and its applications to pediatric imaging.