Lazar Fleysher1, Niels Oesingmann2,
Ryan Brown1, Hina Jaggi1, Graham Wiggins1,
Daniel Sodickson1, Matilde Inglese1,3
1Radiology, NYU School of
Medicine, New York, United States; 2Siemens Medical Solutions USA,
Malvern, PA, United States; 3Neurology, NYU School of Medicine,
New York, United States
A majority of sodium MRIs performed to date provide a global measure of the tissue sodium content, while the most useful information about tissue viability is contained in the intracellular compartment. Here, we show that the intracellular sodium concentration (ISC) and the intracellular sodium volume fraction (ISVF) can be obtained from the tissue sodium concentration (TSC) and the intracellular sodium molar fraction (ISMF) using MRI. The developed method has high potential for clinical and research applications since it allows non-invasive quantitative mapping of the ISMF, ISVF and ISC in-vivo and may be used to study the function of healthy and diseased organs, to monitor disease progression, and to guide treatment.