MPF

Macromolecular Proton Fraction (MPF) mapping is a recently developed at the University of Washington magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology enabling quantitative assessment of myelination in the nervous system. MPF, a parameter derived from magnetization transfer (MT) imaging, has been validated as a myelin biomarker in animal models and showed a promise in clinical studies of human neurological disorders. A recently developed fast MPF mapping method offers a number of practical advantages including high-speed data acquisition, high spatial resolution, easy on-site implementation, metrological robustness, and independence of magnetic field strength. These features make the fast MPF mapping method especially attractive as a uniform quantitative myelin imaging tool for a variety of pre-clinical and clinical research.

This site serves as a Resource for widespread distribution and implementation of the fast MPF mapping technology under support of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) High Impact Neuroscience Research Resource Grant “Quantitative myelin mapping in vivo for clinical and pre-clinical MRI” (R24NS104098).

The goals of the Resource are:

• to make quantitative MPF mapping easily accessible to the users of most widely available human and animal MRI equipment based on standard manufacturers’ software and hardware;
• to enable standardization of image acquisition and processing protocols for reproducible generation of MPF maps of the human and animal brain across a variety of MRI platforms and users’ implementation sites;
• to facilitate applications of fast MPF mapping in a wide range of neuroscience studies;
• to inform the scientific community about recent advances in the MPF mapping technology and its state-of-the-art research applications.