Parting Thoughts

To sum up, our exploration of Magnetization Transfer Ratio (MTR) has highlighted its widespread utility within the field of MRI, in particular for myelin quantification applications. However, it’s essential to emphasize that MTR, while immensely valuable, is not a truly quantitative metric. This point underscores the need for caution when comparing MTR values or conducting longitudinal studies, as various factors, including scanner upgrades (both in hardware and software), can potentially result in variations in MTR values for the same subject or samples.

In our next segment, we’ll shift our focus to MTsat, which is a promising semi-quantitative metric that rivals MTR for its ease of use and rapid acquisition times. MTsat aims to address some of the challenges associated with MTR, while still offering robust sensitivity to macromolecular content.