in vivo quantification of t1 in lumbar spine disk spaces at 3 t using parallel transmission mri objective t1 mri is an emerging quantitative imaging modality that has been shown to correlate with proteoglycan content of disk material in vitro at 15 t the purpose of this study is to quantify t1 values at all lumbar spine disk space levels at 3 t with paralleltransmission mri in healthy adult volunteerssubjects and methods thirtyfour subjects 15 men ages 2160 years mean age 384 years and 19 women ages 2056 years mean age 365 years with no history of back pain or surgery underwent t1 mri of the lumbar spine at 3 t with parallel transmission and sagittal t2weighted imaging mean t1 values of all lumbar spine disk space levels were quantified linear regression analysis and spearman rank correlation were performed on age sex degenerative grade pfirrmann scores and t1 with significance set at p 07 and moderate for r 0507results there was a statistically significant moderate negative correlation between t1 and subject age at disk space levels l12 through l45 inclusive p 0001 and l5s1 p 001 there was a statistically significant difference in t1 between all age groups sampled p 001 and a significant difference between t1 and pfirrmann grades 13 p 001conclusion t1 mri in the lumbar spine with parallel transmission shows significant negative correlations with age at all disk space levels which lends support to a potential role for t1 as a quantitative in vivo biomarker of disk degeneration