Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) is an important biomarker for the diseases related to the degradation of cartilage tissues. The GAG content in cartilage tissue is known to be well correlated with the sodium concentration. In addition, the collagenous extracellular matrices of cartilage tissues provide sodium ions with ordered environments. Recently, the so-called quadrupolar jump-and-return (QJR) sequence has been developed, which can selectively detect sodium ions in ordered environments. In this work, we demonstrate the feasibility of the QJR sequence for in vivo knee MRI by assessing its performance on the contrast modification to cartilage tissues and fluid.
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