Intermolecular double-quantum coherence MR microimaging of pig tail with unique image contrast

Image contrast in intermolecular double-quantum coherence (iDQC) imaging of a pig tail was investigated on a 7.05-T microimaging scanner. In addition to TR (repetition time) and TE (echo time), the time interval τ between radio frequency pulses during iDQC evolution and the areas under the iDQC-encode gradients in the iDQC imaging sequence were also used to manipulate image contrast. When suitable imaging parameters were selected, images with unique contrast, such as those with certain regions of the sample highlighted, were obtained without using contrast agents. The effects of iDQC-encode gradient on image contrast were studied quantitatively, and the unique contrast imposed by the related diffusion weighting was also shown. Experimental results demonstrated that the iDQC images have contrast fundamentally different from the conventional single-quantum coherence images.