This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing theresources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject andinvestigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source,and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed isfor the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator.Degenerative disc disease (DDD) is the most common cause of back-related disability among North American adults. DDD translates into nearly 100 billion dollars in health-related expenditures in the United States alone. Conventional T1 and T2 imaging techniques are useful for observing late structural morphological changes to the inter-vertebral discs (IVDs) but are insensitive to early biochemical changes. These late structural changes are often clinically identified as late-stage DDD. Earlier degenerative change occurs within the IVD nucleus pulposus (NP), as large aggregating proteoglycans break down. The T1p relaxation time has enhanced sensitivity to the interaction between bulk water molecules and extracellular matrix macromolecules, such as the proteoglycans in the NP. In this study, we used the ability of T1p to detect early biochemical changes within the NP with a novel 3D pulse sequence to image the entire disc volume. Ultimately, volumetric 3D T1p analysis may provide clinicians with an enhanced method to detect early DDD over conventional 2D T1p imaging techniques. We measured the repeatability of mapping T1p relaxation with a novel 3D MRI pulse sequence.
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