T1 Relaxation: Exchange Between Parallel and Anti-Parallel Spins

T1 Relaxation
T1 Relaxation: Longitudinal magnetization increase due to energy

exchange between parallel and anti-parallel spins.
Note: Interactions that involve energy exchange always involve dephasing

BUT
dephasing does not always involve energy exchange!
Therefore, T2 < T1
T1 is usually 5-10 times larger in soft tissues

T1 Relaxation
(Spin Lattice Interactions)
After spins are excited out of equilibrium, spins will
lose energy to the “spin lattice” of their surrounding
environment.
When this happens, the spins move

towards thermal equilibrium.
Mz moves closer to thermal equilibrium.
Mz The spins eventually get back to

equilibrium and Mz increases, since
there are more parallel spins than
anti-parallel spins.
This is Saturation Recovery
Mz recovery is the important thing here.

T1 Relaxation
(Spin Lattice Interactions)
Therefore, after a saturation pulse
T1 relaxation results in signal increase
T1 is the time after a saturation pulse

that it takes for the signal to increase
to ~63% of the maximum.
T1 Recovery
When T1 is short, Mz recovers quickly:
When T1 is long, Mz recovers slowly:

T1 Weighting
When your time between RF excitation pulse repetitions
(aka TR) is short compared to T1,
M0 doesn’t have enough time to recover.
So when TR is short and T1 is long, Mz will end up short and

the measured signal will be low.
When TR is short and T1 is short, Mz will end up long and

the measured signal will be high.
Long T1 Short T1
T1 and Molecular Tumbling Frequency
Many molecules tumbling
at the resonant frequency,
Thus many interactions,
and fast energy exchange
(i.e. short T1)
Few molecules tumbling

at the resonant frequency,
Thus few interactions,
and slow energy exchange
(i.e. long T1)
T1, T2 and Molecular Characteristics
Spins stay in one place long Spins don’t stay in one place long
enough to dephase a lot, so enough to dephase much, so
T2 is short. T2 is long.
We Don’t Typically Measure Signal
Immediately After the Excitation Pulse
Problems:
Excitation
pulse • Signal decays very fast
90o
RF • We must wait for the transmitter to turn off before
Transmit we turn on the receiver, so we lose even more signal
• Signal is reflective of T2*, not T2 (which we often

prefer, since it isn’t affected as much by
susceptibility effects)
T2*
Received
Signal
FID
(free induction decay)
One Solution: The Gradient Echo
Using Gradients to Refocus Spins
We can also create an artificial “gradient” in the static magnetic field,

using a gradient coil.
We can use this to deliberately cause spins to dephase and then

rephase to create a signal “echo”:
Using Gradients to Refocus Spins
In the Rotating Frame:
Weak BB00
Strong Medium B0 Strong
Weak B B00
First, we create a B0 gradient in one direction to dephase the spins.

(Note: In the strong field the vector is drifting clockwise.
In the weak field the vector is drifting counter-clockwise.)
Then, we reverse the gradient to rephase the spins into an echo.

Graphing Gradients
This is how we graph the
reversing gradients in a pulse
sequence diagram.
This is a gradient echo.

Another Solution: The Spin Echo
Using RF to Refocus Spins
Refocus
pulse
Excitation
pulse
TE/2 TE/2
TE = echo time
TE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_echo
T2 Relaxation
Imagine the signal produced by a 90° pulse followed by
a series of 180° pulses:
T2-Weighting
When TE is short compared to T2,

the signal doesn’t have enough time to decay much.
When TE is long compared to T2, the signal can decay more.
When an image has lost significant signal due to T2 relaxation,

it is called T2-weighted.
Typical Brain Tissue Parameters
(at 1.5T)
Tissue T2 (ms) T1(ms)
CSF 600 2400
Gray matter (cortex) 100 920
White matter 90 780
Adipose tissue 80 270
Note: Gadolinium-based contrast agents reduce T1 locally.

Proton Density (PD-) Weighting
This is simply the density of the spins.

As expected CSF is highest.
Proton Density (PD-) Weighting
Important!
To avoid differences between tissues with different T1s, TR is long.
To avoid differences between tissues with different T2s, TE is short.

T1-Weighting
Important!
Fat: Shortest T1 Recovers fastest Bright on T1W Image
CSF: Longest T1 Recovers slowest Dark on T1W Image

T1-Weighting
Important!
To see differences between tissues with different T1s, TR is short.
To avoid differences between tissues with different T2s, TE is short.

T2-Weighting
Important!
To avoid differences between tissues with different T1s, TR is long.
To see differences between tissues with different T2s, TE is long.

Each Weighting Has its Own Contrast
RF Pulse Sequence Diagram
Example: Dual Echo
Note: In this case we have two TE values and one TR value.
Excitation 1st Refocus 2nd Refocus

Pulse Pulse Pulse
1st Echo 2nd Echo

Dual Echo can give you 2 images
with different contrast
TE=20ms TE=80ms
Increasing T2 weighting
Inversion Recovery (IR)
TI = inversion time
We can also add an inversion pulse and an inversion time delay (TI) to
the beginning of our sequence of pulses.
But, why bother?

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T1 Relaxation

T1 Relaxation: Longitudinal magnetization increase due to energy

Note: Interactions that involve energy exchange always involve dephasing

T1 is usually 5-10 times larger in soft tissues

When this happens, the spins move

Mz The spins eventually get back to

Mz recovery is the important thing here.

T1 is the time after a saturation pulse

When T1 is short, Mz recovers quickly:

When T1 is long, Mz recovers slowly:

So when TR is short and T1 is long, Mz will end up short and

When TR is short and T1 is short, Mz will end up long and

Few molecules tumbling

• Signal is reflective of T2*, not T2 (which we often

We can also create an artificial “gradient” in the static magnetic field,

We can use this to deliberately cause spins to dephase and then

First, we create a B0 gradient in one direction to dephase the spins.

Then, we reverse the gradient to rephase the spins into an echo.

This is a gradient echo.

When TE is short compared to T2,

When TE is long compared to T2, the signal can decay more.

When an image has lost significant signal due to T2 relaxation,

CSF 600 2400

Gray matter (cortex) 100 920

White matter 90 780

Adipose tissue 80 270

Note: Gadolinium-based contrast agents reduce T1 locally.

This is simply the density of the spins.

To avoid differences between tissues with different T1s, TR is long.

To avoid differences between tissues with different T2s, TE is short.

Fat: Shortest T1 Recovers fastest Bright on T1W Image

CSF: Longest T1 Recovers slowest Dark on T1W Image

To see differences between tissues with different T1s, TR is short.

To avoid differences between tissues with different T2s, TE is short.

To avoid differences between tissues with different T1s, TR is long.

To see differences between tissues with different T2s, TE is long.

Excitation 1st Refocus 2nd Refocus

1st Echo 2nd Echo

But, why bother?

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