Abstract #0604

Multiple Sclerosis Alters Intra-cellular Sodium Concentration & Intra-cellular Volume Fraction: An In-Vivo 7T MRI study

Lazar Fleysher¹, Niels Oesingmann², Ryan Brown¹, Hina Jaggi¹, Graham Wiggins¹, Daniel Sodickson¹, Joseph Herbert³, Matilde Inglese¹

¹Radiology, NYU School of Medicine, New York, USA; ²Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Malvern, PA, USA; ³Neurology, NYU School of Medicine, New York, USA

Intracellular Sodium Concentration (ISC) and Intracellular Sodium Volume Fraction (ISVF) are often used as operational measures of tissue viability. Elevated brain tissue sodium concentration (TSC) has been reported previously in MS patients. However, TSC is sensitive but not specific to variations in ISC and ISVF. In this work, we employ single- (SQ) and triple-quantum-filtered (TQF) sodium MRI at 7T to evaluate ISC and ISVF in MS patients. We found that ISCs in the MS patients are higher than in healthy controls indicating accumulation of intracellular sodium. In addition, we observed that the patients ISFVs are lower than those of healthy controls indicating loss of the intracellular volume.