Repeatability and reproducibility of rapid T1 mapping of brain tissues at 64 mT: a multicentre study

Lena, Beatrice, Padormo, Francesco, Teixeira, Rui Pedro A.G., Bennallick, Carly, Gholam, James, van den Broek, Ruben, Lecurieux Lafayette, Samson, Vavasour, Irene, Cercignani, Mara ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4550-2456, Jones, Derek K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4409-8049, Kolind, Shannon, Hajnal, Jo, Bourke, Niall, Dong, Yiming, Hollander, William J., Karaulanov, Todor, Deoni, Sean C.L., Williams, Steven C.R., Sundgren, Pia C., Webb, Andrew G. and Ljungberg, Emil 2025. Repeatability and reproducibility of rapid T1 mapping of brain tissues at 64 mT: a multicentre study. Imaging Neuroscience 3 , IMAG.a.916. 10.1162/IMAG.a.916

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Abstract

Very-low-field MRI (<100 mT) holds promise for Point-of-Care brain imaging applications, including stroke and multiple sclerosis, with T1 mapping emerging as a key biomarker for brain development and pathology. However, current low field T1 mapping protocols suffer from long acquisition times and limited multi-site repeatability. This study aimed to improve T1 mapping at 64 mT using a clinically feasible 10-minute protocol and assess repeatability and reproducibility across sites. We present an analysis of the repeatability and reproducibility of rapid T1 measurements in a commercially available phantom and in 60 volunteers, scanned with a portable 64 mT MRI systems at six sites. T1 mapping was performed using an undersampled 3D inversion-recovery turbo spin-echo sequence with a 10.8-minute scan time, and reconstructed with a locally low-rank approach. Our results in phantom demonstrated high reproducibility in T1 measurements (below 3% differences from the average), with non-significant differences between sites. Longitudinal measurements demonstrated high repeatability over time both in vivo and in phantom settings in one site, with minimal variability (average Coefficient of Variation of 0.6%). Average in vivo T1 values for white matter and cortex were 290±6 ms and 332±8 ms, respectively and the values demonstrated high reproducibility, with differences of less than 4% from the average across sites. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of multi-site in vivo T1 mapping at 64 mT, providing normative T1 values at this field strength and supporting its use as a quantitative biomarker in clinical applications.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Psychology Research Institutes & Centres > Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC)
Publisher:	Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press
ISSN:	2837-6056
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	18 September 2025
Date of Acceptance:	10 September 2025
Last Modified:	05 Nov 2025 15:31
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/181182

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