Whole-brain high-resolution myelin water fraction mapping within 6 min using the accelerated BMC-mcDESPOT (aBMC-mcDESPOT) method.

Motivation: Our previous works demonstrate the unique capability of BMC-mcDESPOT MRI method which provided myelin water fraction(MWF) mapping to infer myelination. However, the BMC-mcDESPOT protocol consists of multiple imaging sequences, leading to the total acquisition time of 17min. Goal(s): In this study, we test the feasibility of accelerating the acquisition by under-sampling in both the Fourier and in the data domain. Approach: We acquired fully-sampled BMC-mcDESPOT dataset, followed by under-sampled BMC-mcDESPOT dataset with compressed sensing. Further acceleration was achieved retrospectively in the data domain by selecting two flip-angles (aBMC-mcDESPOT). Results: Our results showed that derived MWF maps using BMC-mcDESPOT and aBMC-mcDESPOT were virtually similar. Impact: We proposed the accelerated BMC-mcDESPOT (aBMC-mcDESPOT) analysis, which drastically reduces acquisition time for accurately measuring MWF. This critical advancement in multicomponent relaxometry will allow greater integration of MWF imaging in clinical investigations for cerebral myelination in aging and neurodegenerative diseases.