Sandro Romanzetti1, N. J. Shah1,2
1Institute of Neuroscience
& Medicine, Research Centre Juelich, Juelich, Germany; 2Department
of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, JARA, RWTH Aachen University, 52074
Aachen, Germany
Centric SPRITE sequences can acquire images at ultrashort echo times and are not greatly affected by T2* effects. This is a fundamental feature for the quantification of tissue sodium concentration (TSC) in the brain. Furthermore, the insensitivity to B0 inhomogeneities and chemical shift artefacts of this sequences reduce corrections to just an acquisition of a single RF excitation map. In this study, a TSC map of the brain of a healthy human brain was obtained for the first time by using this sequence. Application to pathologies where local changes of sodium distribution are indicative of disease status are foreseen.