Maurits A. Jansen1,
Urte Kgebein1, Friedrich Wetterling2, Gillian A. Gray1,
Ian Marshall1
1Centre
for Cardiovascular Science, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Midlothian,
United Kingdom; 2Faculty of Engineering, Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin, Leinster, Ireland
Absolute tissue sodium concentration is elevated in myocardial infarction and has been suggested as a biomarker for cell viability. We show here for the first time a new 23Na chemical shift imaging method for imaging of the in vivo rat heart during several different phases of the cardiac cycle with sufficient spatial resolution. This method offers a new tool for studying myocardial ion homeostasis in vivo and may be of interest for different areas of cardiovascular disease, e.g. myocardial infarction, myocardial hypertrophy, but could also be used to study other organs like kidney, liver or tumours.