Potential for white matter microstructure quantification on a clinical 7T system

Motivation: The potential of dMRI microstructure mapping at 7 Tesla is largely unexplored, due to ultra-high field challenges related to spatial distortions and uneven excitation. Goal(s): Assessing 7T dMRI for white matter microstructure estimation at 7T and examining the impact of acquisition protocol on model estimates. Approach: Standard Model parameter maps were derived from two acquisition protocols (bmax=3 vs bmax=13 $$$ms/\mu m^2$$$), to further investigate the relationship between parameter estimates both at ROI and voxel level. Results: We report high contrast-to-noise ratio microstructure maps. Our results highlight stronger region-wise and voxel-wise correlations between SM parameters in the higher b-value protocol. Impact: The diffusion microstructure field can greatly benefit from clinically-approved high-field systems with strong gradients, with flexibility to balance SNR, spatial resolution, and q-t sampling.