Fast method for longitudinal relaxation time and water content mapping of the human brain on a clinical MR scanner.

Background: Longitudinal relaxation time (T(1)) map generation from human brain slices renders possible the in vivo follow-up of the changes in T(1) values during the course of several pathologies such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury etc. T(1) values can be converted to water contents, thus brain oedema reducing therapy can be non-invasively evaluated. The purpose of the study was to work out a fast and simple MRI method to obtain T(1) and water maps of the human brain.