Figure 1.

Visualizing deep brain stimulation (DBS) targets with different magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) field strengths (adapted from [24] illustrating DBS targets across field strengths, requiring different contrasts. We obtained 1.5 T images from a 52-year-old male Parkinson’s disease patient at the Maastricht University Medical Center (MUMC). Clinical 3 T and 7 T images were obtained from a from 57-year-old male Parkinson’s disease patient at the Maastricht University Medical Center (MUMC), and the optimized 3 T images were obtained from a healthy male age-matched subject at the Spinoza Center for Neuroimaging, Amsterdam. All images are shown in the axial plane and are present in their native space with no post-processing to replicate the visualization of each nucleus as performed on neurosurgical planning software. The T1 contrasts show the anterior thalamic nucleus and nucleus accumbens at all field strengths. The subthalamic nucleus and globus pallidus (GP) are shown with a T2 contrast at 1.5 T and clinical 3 T scan. Note that in the 7 T contrast, the medial medullary lamina is visible, allowing us to distinguish between the internal and external segment of the GP. For optimized 3 T and 7 T, the STN and GP are shown with a T2* contrast. The acquisition times (TA) for each scan are included to highlight the fact that optimized 3 T can provide high-quality images similar to those at 7 T but take nearly twice as long to obtain. While the STN and GP are visible in both 3 T images, the contrast and sharpness of borders increases at 7 T.