Patrick Michael Heiler1, Friederike L.
Vollmar2, Friedrich Wetterling1, Saema Ansar2,
Simon Konstandin1, Marc Fatar2, Lothar Rudi Schad1
1Computer Assisted Clinical
Medicine, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany; 2Department of
Neurology, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany
This work describes the application of the chemical shift imaging sequence to sodium imaging and shows the applicability to acquire 23Na images and locally resolved T2* respectively sodium density maps, received by an exponential fit estimation of the time series of each phase encoding. The capability of this technique is in measurements of mice with permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion. Three dimensional 23Na images with a resolution of 0.6x0.6x1.2 mm3 show hyperintense sodium signal in the infarcted area and an increase in sodium density of more than 200% meanwhile the T2* relaxation rate increases by 10-30% compared to unaffected brain tissue.