Blood as a Biological Model for MREPT: A Realistic Approach to Mimic Tissue Electrical Properties

Motivation: The validation of current MREPT methods is limited by homogeneous phantoms which do not capture the complexity of biological tissues. We explored using blood as a biological model to improve the realism of phantoms. Goal(s): To evaluate the suitability of blood as a biological model for developing more realistic phantoms in MREPT experiments. Approach: We performed MREPT experiments using blood samples, taking advantage of the ease of preparation of samples with different conductivity values. Results: This study demonstrates that blood can serve as a test object for MREPT experiments due to its modifiable conductivity through plasma dilution. Impact: Blood-based models for MR-based electrical properties mapping enhance the realism of phantoms, facilitating the evaluation of conductivity in heterogeneous biological tissues. This study validates blood as a versatile model system, enabling non-invasive analysis of microscopic structures in vivo.