Bang-Bon Koo1, Vibhu Sachdev1,
Ronald J. Killiany1,2
1Multimodal Whole Animal
Imaging Core, National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratories Institute
Boston University Medical Campus, Boston, MA, United States; 2Department
of Anatomy & Neurobiology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston,
MA, United States
SPIO nanoparticles in nano-molar to micro-molar concentrations can alter the relaxation rates of many nearby tissue water protons thereby making them conspicuous on post contrast enhanced MRI. However, quantifying in-vivo of SPIO enhanced MRI images in a diffusely variant tissue medium have not been adequately addressed: most studies qualitatively point out the regions with high intensity contrasts and examine signal properties by averaging signals. Here, we designed a multi-compartment agarose gel phantom with 2 different SPIO concentrations to simulate the effects of different diffuse levels on SPIO enhanced MRI. Quantitative post processing techniques were then applied for validations of the effects.