Bhavana Shantilal Solanky1, Frank Riemer1, Xavier Golay2, Claudia A. M. Wheeler-Kingshott1
1NMR Research Unit, Department of Neuroinflammation, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, Greater London, United Kingdom; 2Department of Brain Repair and Rehabilitation, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, Greater London, United Kingdom
The potential of following the dynamics of sodium ions in diseased populations provides a huge drive for the development of quantitative sodium MRI in the brain. Many diseases also potentially involve sodium channels in other areas of the central nervous system (CNS), such as the spinal cord. However, due to the intrinsically low signal to noise of sodium images and the small size of spinal cord sodium MRI here is lacking. Here we investigate the feasibility of sodium MR Spectroscopy (MRS) in the cervical spinal cord at 3T in view of studying the dynamics of sodium in this challenging area.