Abstract #4515

Correlation between sodium and T1ρ dispersion in human calf muscle

Ping Wang^1,2, Henry Zhu^1,2, Hakmook Kang³, and John C. Gore^1,2

¹Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States, ²Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States, ³Department of Biostatistics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States

Simultaneous acquisitions of sodium concentrations and T_1ρ in muscles from different aged individuals show that sodium values increase with age and are accompanied by increases in the dispersion of spin-lock relaxation rates (i.e. the difference in R_1ρ = 1/T_1ρ at low and high locking frequencies). A previous study has suggested that such differences in R_1ρat different fields reflects the contribution of chemical exchange to relaxation, which is known to dominate transverse relaxation at high fields, and potentially reflects GAG concentration in cartilage. In this study, we found ΔR_1ρin muscle was smaller than in cartilage at 3T but was measureable and showed a strong correlation with sodium content in muscle. The increase in sodium with age possibly corresponds to the loss of muscle mass and increase in extracellular volume within a voxel, but this appears to be accompanied by an increase in exchangeable protons as well.

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