Ke Li1,2, Jared G. Cobb1,3,
Jingping Xie1,2, Zhongliang Zu1,2, Daniel F. Gochberg1,2,
John C. Gore1,2
1Institute of Imaging
Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States; 2Department
of Radiology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States; 3Department
of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United
States
Chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) imaging techniques have been developed to detect the proton exchange between water and mobile solute molecules which contain exchangeable protons. We hypothesize that CEST contrast and T1ρ relaxation rates are sensitive to the complexity of exchanging molecule and not just the amide content. To test this idea, preliminary studies were performed on a poly-L-Lysine (PLL) model system with different molecular weights, thus different complexities.
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