Signa excite 3t

All studies were performed with a 3T MR system (Signa EXCITE 3T; GE Healthcare, Milwaukee, WI) using a dedicated eight-channel phased-array coil (USA Instruments, Aurora, OH). The PADRE was performed with a 3D multi-echo spoiled GRE sequence.^{19 (link)} The imaging parameters included: axial or coronal planes covering the whole globus pallidus (GP); 11 echo times; first echo time, 4.5 msec; uniform echo time spacing, 5 msec; repetition time, 58.4 msec; flip angle, 15°; bandwidth per pixel, ± 62.5 Hz; field of view, 22 × 16.5 cm; acquisition matrices, 320 × 416; slice thickness, 1.5 mm; number of slices, 1848 and an imaging time of 7 min 1 sec. A parallel imaging method (the array spatial sensitivity encoding technique) was used with a reduction factor of 2. For the 3D multi-echo spoiled GRE sequence, we acquired 33 axial and 17 coronal-plane images of the 50 NC, and all images of patients with PD were obtained in axial-plane images. All the subjects were also imaged with T₂WI and obtained with axial plane, and imaging parameters were as follows: echo time, 85 msec; repetition time, 4000 msec; flip angle, 90°; slice thickness, 5 mm; field of view, 22 × 22 cm; acquisition matrices, 512 × 512 and an imaging time of 3 min 20 sec.

All brain MRI data were obtained using the same protocol on a single 3T MRI scanner (Signa EXCITE 3T; GE Healthcare, Wankesha, WI, USA) with an 8-channel brain phased-array coil. Original T1WI were acquired in the steady state using a 3D fast-spoiled gradient recalled sequence with the following parameters: repetition time, 10 ms; echo time, 4.1 ms; inversion time, 700 ms; flip angle, 10; field-of view, 24 cm; section thickness, 1.2 mm; and resolution, 1.0 × 1.0 × 1.2 mm. All images were corrected for distortion due to gradient non-linearity using Grad Warp software^{31 (link)} and for intensity inhomogeneity using the “N3” function^{32 (link)}.

MRI data were obtained on a 3T MR system (Signa EXCITE 3T; GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI) with an 8-channel brain phased-array coil. Images were acquired by three-dimensional fast-spoiled gradient recalled acquisition (3D-FSPGR). The acquisition parameters were: repetition time/echo time, 10/4.1 ms; flip angle, 10°; field of view, 24 cm; and resolution, 0.9 × 0.9 × 1.2 mm. All images were corrected for image distortion due to gradient non-linearity using the “Grad Warp” software program (Jovicich et al., 2006 (link)).

Magnetic resonance imaging was performed using a 3T MR system (Signa EXCITE 3T; GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI, USA) equipped with an eight-channel brain phased-array coil. Rather than assessing functional connectivity at rest, this study utilized a structural covariance network based on brain structural imaging. The original T1 images were acquired using three-dimensional (3D) fast-spoiled gradient-recalled acquisition in a steady state. The acquisition parameters were set as follows: repetition time, 10 ms; echo time, 4.1 ms; inversion time, 700 ms; flip angle, 10°; field-of-view, 24 cm; section thickness, 1.2 mm; and resolution, 0.9 × 0.9 × 1.2 mm. All images underwent correction for image distortion due to gradient non-linearity using the Grad Warp software program (19 (link)) and for intensity inhomogeneity with the “N3” function (20 (link)).

All studies were performed using the 3-T MRI system (Signa EXCITE 3 T; GE Healthcare) with a dedicated eight-channel phased-array coil (USA Instruments Aurora, OH, USA).
All patients and controls underwent brain MRI according to our standard protocol, including T2WI, FLAIR imaging and T1-weighted imaging (T1WI). T2WI, FLAIR imaging and T1WI (spin-echo imaging) were obtained on the axial planes. For T1WI (3D fast spoiled gradient-echo imaging), we used three cross-section images (coronal, axial, and sagittal) reconstructed from the images obtained on the sagittal plane. The imaging parameters (repetition time ms/echo time ms/inversion time/NEX/imaging time) were 4,500/85/NA/1/2 min and 10 s for T2WI, 12,000/140/2,600/2/3 min and 20 s for FLAIR imaging and 400/4/NA/2/2 min and 40 s for spin-echo T1WI. The T2WI, T1WI, and FLAIR images were acquired at a section thickness of 4 mm, an intersection gap of 2.5 mm, a field of view of 22 cm and a matrix of 256 × 192. The following parameters were used for spoiled gradient-echo imaging: repetition time ms/echo time ms, 10/4; flip angle, 10°; bandwidth, 42 kHz; section thickness, 1.2 mm; matrix, 256 × 256; field of view, 24 × 24 cm; imaging time, 3 minutes and 56 seconds.