Timecourse of BOLD Response in Normal Rat Kidney Following Vasomodulator Administration Using Standard 1.5T Clinical Hardware.

Neil Peter Jerome¹, Jessica K R Boult¹, Matthew Orton¹, James d'Arcy¹, David J. Collins¹, Dow-Mu Koh², Simon P. Robinson¹

Preclinical studies are increasingly performed on clinical systems, using superior hardware and conferring greater clinical relevance. Limitations in signal, leading to lack of spatial resolution or insufficient signal for fitting decay curves, can be mitigated by use of an extremity loop coil with a standard head array for parallel acquisition. We demonstrate observation of time-dependent changes in T₂* from normal rat kidney following administration of vasomodulators such as hydralazine, furosemide, and angiotensin II, and show the potential of such a set-up to probe homeostatic response to vasomodulation, with potential for extrapolation to renal disease and pathophysiological studies.