Myelin water imaging depends on white matter fiber orientation in the human brain

Purpose The multi‐exponential T 2 decay of the MRI signal from cerebral white matter can be separated into short T 2 components related to myelin water and long T 2 components related to intracellular and extracellular water. In this study, we investigated to what degree the apparent myelin water fraction (MWF) depends on the angle between white matter fibers and the main magnetic field. Methods Maps of the apparent MWF were acquired using...