Hanbing Lu1, Steven Demny1, William Rea1, Yantao Zuo1, Yihong Yang1, Elliot A. Stein1
1National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIH, Baltimore, MD, USA
ME-MRI has been successfully applied to map neuronal response to a variety of stimuli. However, manganese has very low permeability through the blood-brain barrier(BBB). For studies employing pharmacological or other manipulations, where multiple cortical and subcortical structures are expected to be activated, temporal disruption of BBB appears to be necessary for whole brain imaging. A novel method using an agent that normally targets endothelial barrier antigen to open BBB for dynamic ME-MRI experiments is presented. This agent is infused intravenously, avoiding surgical trauma associated with carotid artery catheterization when hyperosmolar mannitol is used to open BBB.