Abstract #0918

Romanzetti S, Kaffanke J, Halse M, Balcom B, Shah N

Physiological processes taking place in the cell rely upon highly regulated intra- (10 mM) and extracellular (150 mM) sodium ion concentrations. Variations of sodium concentration from these values are indicative of diseases. The measurement of Tissue Sodium Concentration (TSC) is therefore important to understand disease grade and tissue viability. However, difficulties such as low sensitivity and complex relaxation behaviour are associated with 23Na imaging. In this study performed at 4T, in vivo 23Na images acquired using Conical-SPRITE are compared to images acquired using an optimised 3D Gradient Echo on a normal healthy volunteer brain. Conical SPRITE images show very good signal-to-noise ratios but are characterised by blurring which hinders exact anatomical determination. On the other hand, 3DGRE delivers images with good anatomical details but almost completely loses the fast component of the 23Na signal.