Abstract #0203

Measuring transmembrane water exchange in rat brain cortical cells in normal and pathological conditions

Ruiliang Bai¹, Charles S. Springer, Jr.², Dietmar Plenz³, and Peter Basser¹

¹Section on Quantitative Imaging and Tissue Sciences, DIBGI, NICHD, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States, ²Advanced Imaging Research Center, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, United States, ³Section on Critical Brain Dynamics, LSN, NIMH, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States

Knowledge of transmembrane water exchange kinetics is invaluable for the correct interpretation of many MRI experiments, e.g., DCE-MRI, diffusion MRI, etc. Here we quantitatively studied the transmembrane water exchange in organotypic cultures from rat brain cortex with an MR relaxation contrast agent. In normal states, we determined the equilibrium cellular water efflux rate constant [k_io] is 2.15 (± 1.28) s^-1 at 34 (± 1) °C. In the likely cell-swollen state induced by Ouabain perfusion, we, for the first time, quantitatively measured a global increase of the intracellular volume fraction (~104%) together and a large decrease of k_io (~64%).

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