The MM spins have a much broader absorption line shape than the liquid spins making the MM spins as much as 10^6 times more sensitive to an off-resonance pulse
Depending on the degree of coupling between these pools, the free water pool becomes partially saturated. If the free water pool is subsequently imaged using routine RF pulses and gradients, its signal will be reduced secondary to the MT effect; i.e., enhancing the contrast of the bound pool
Conventional T1w FLASH sequences can be used to image hyperintense signal in deep brain regions such as the locus coeruleus (LC)
Hyperintense LC signals observed in humans and rodents might originate from a large intra-cellular free water proton pool with a short T1 due to large amounts of neuromelanin and a high concentration of metals, such as copper and/or iron1
However, conventional MRI imaging suffers a lack of precision and might eventually fail due to the long echo times (order of ms) and the rapidly decaying MR signals2
360 for MT pulse
180 for each adiabatic pulse
Only 40% of the acquired data
UTE has improved contrast in iron-rich brain regions