Analysis of multiple T2 proton relaxation processes in human head and imaging on the basis of selective and assigned T2 values.

Two-dimensional T2-selective proton imaging of human head has been performed at 10 MHz employing Carr-Purcell-Gill-Meiboom pulse trains with echo separation of 6 and 12 msec. Using the information of 36 spin echoes and applying a recovery time of 2 sec the magnetization decay has been traced. The multi-exponential T2 relaxation curve of each pixel of the image has been deconvoluted into up to three mono-exponential functions which are defined by 1/T2,i and alpha i. The T2,i values are represented in a T2 histogram of the slice and then selected for generating images which relate to protons with specific T2. The alpha i values indicate the relative amounts of the T2-selected protons. Imaging on the basis of alpha i values increases the contrast of the image. The multiple T2-selective imaging technique leads to head images which show selectively cerebrospinal fluid, gray matter, different types of white matter, and nonassigned fast-relaxing proton classes.