Vendor-neutral MP2RAGE with Pulseq in VENUS: Three vendors and five scanners

Motivation: MP2RAGE began as an open-source method, gaining popularity for its superior gray/white-matter T1w contrast and rapid T1 mapping. However, its adoption has been hindered by limited multi-vendor implementation. Goal(s): To develop a vendor-neutral MP2RAGE framework that enhances accessibility and reproducibility across five 3T scanners from Canon, GE, and Siemens. Approach: Implemented an open-source MP2RAGE using Pulseq for acquisition, BART for reconstruction, and qMRLab for processing, evaluated on reference phantoms and a healthy subject. Results: The vendor-neutral implementation demonstrated consistent contrast characteristics across scanners. T1 measurements in phantoms exhibited acceptable agreement with the ground-truth, although they showed slightly greater deviations compared to vendor-native implementations. Impact: Successfully deployed to five 3T scanners from three vendors, Pulseq-MP2RAGE standardizes the entire workflow using VENUS. This approach paves a rigorous path to elevate quantitative MRI to a metrological standard, unlocking the estimation of measurement uncertainties free from vendor-native discrepancies.