Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the visualization of small venous vessels in the normal human brain at a field strength of 3 Tesla. Methods: T2*-weighted, three-dimensional gradient-echo images were acquired by exploiting the magnetic susceptibility difference between oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin in the vasculature and microvasculature. The spatial resolution was 0.5 × 0.5 × 1 mm 3 , and sequence parameters were varied to obtain good vessel delineation. Improved

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... ility of venous vessels was obtained by creating phase mask images from the magnetic resonance phase images and multiplying these by the magnitude images. Venograms were created by performing a minimum intensity projection over targeted volumes. Results: Highly detailed visualization of venous structures deep in the brain and in the superficial cortical areas were obtained without administration of an exogenous contrast agent; compared with similar studies performed at 1.5 T, the echo time could be reduced from typically 40-50 ms to 17-28 ms. Conclusion: Imaging at high-field strength offers the possibility of improved resolution and the delineation of smaller vessels compared with lower field strengths.