N. Shah, W. Worthoff, K. Langen
Feb 1, 2016
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NMR in Biomedicine
Abstract
Sodium‐based MRI plays a vital role in the study of metabolism and can unveil valuable information about emerging and existing pathology – in particular in the human brain. Sodium is the second most abundant MR active nucleus in living tissue and, due to its quadrupolar nature, has magnetic properties not common to conventional proton MRI, which can reveal further insights, such as information on the compartmental distribution of intra‐ and extracellular sodium. Nevertheless, the use of sodium nuclei for imaging comes at the expense of a lower sensitivity and significantly reduced relaxation times, making in vivo sodium studies feasible only at high magnetic field strength and by the use of dedicated pulse sequences.