Discrimination between white and gray matter in the cervical spinal cord using the Myelin-Sensitive Inversion Recovery (MySIR)

Motivation: Discrimination between gray and white matter of the spinal cord remains challenging. Goal(s): To investigate imaging techniques that best discriminate gray matter from white matter. Approach: Inhomogeneous magnetization transfer (ihMT) and phase-sensitive inversion recovery (PSIR) have been reported effective in discriminating between gray and white matter. Myelin-sensitive inversion recovery (MySIR) was compared with ihMT and PSIR for evaluating the discriminability between gray and white matter. Results: MySIR had the highest contrast ratio compared to ihMT and PSIR. Impact: MySIR was superior to ihMT and PSIR in discriminating gray matter from white matter, and MySIR can be useful as a new myelin-specific MR imaging technique for spinal cord segmentation.