Magnetization Transfer Encoded Steady State Cardiac Imaging of Fibrotic Development in Mice

Moriel Vandsburger¹, Katrien Vandoorne¹, Michal Neeman¹

The emergence of fibrotic tissue in the heart typically occurs either following myocardial infarction (MI) or accompanying heart failure. Fibrotic collagen generates significant magnetization transfer (MT) effects across a broad frequency range with surrounding water molecules. We sought to exploit the MT properties of collagen, using a novel free breathing retrospectively gated MT-encoded steady state cardiac cine method, in order to quantitatively and non-invasively image fibrotic scar formation following MI in mice.