Fernando Emilio Boada1, Yongxian Qian1,
Ariel Gildengers2, Mary Phillips2, David Kupfer2
1MR Research Center, University of
Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; 2Psychiatry, University
of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
Bipolar
Disorder (BPD) is a devastating mental illness that is often treated using
Lithium Carbonate therapy. Unfortunately, lithium carbonate therapy has
life-threatening side effects. Moreover, its mechanisms of action and preferred
accumulation sites in the in vivo brain continue to be unknown sixty years
after its original introduction. A methodology for studying the spatial
distribution of lithium carbonate in the brain of BPD subjects could,
therefore, be an invaluable tool for studying this disease. In this work we
present the first demonstration of 3D lithium MRI in the in Vivo human Brain
at 7 Tesla.