7Li 2D CSI of human brain on a clinical scanner.
Lithium salts have been widely used in the treatment of mood disorders, but the mechanism of action is still not clear. In this work, a methodology for two-dimensional Lithium-7 imaging on clinical systems is presented. The data were acquired using a phosphorus volume head coil that was re-tuned for the Lithium-7 frequency. A spectroscopic sequence was used to acquire the free induction decay (FID) after volume excitation using a hard pulse. The results obtained on the head of patients undergoing lithium treatment (n = 7, 0.6 mEq/l average serum level) demonstrate that images of adequate signal to noise ratio (100:1) can be obtained in acceptable imaging times (55 min) using the proposed methodology. The distribution of 7Li appears uniform in the brains of the patients studied.
Girard
F
F
Division of Medical Imaging, National Institute of Radiological Sciences, Chiba, Japan. franck.girard@med.ge.com
Suhara
T
T
Sassa
T
T
Okubo
Y
Y
Obata
T
T
Ikehira
H
H
Sudo
Y
Y
Koga
M
M
Yoshioka
H
H
Yoshida
K
K
D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007554:Isotopes; D008094:Lithium; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D013053:Spectrophotometry / Q000379:methods; D013997:Time Factors
D007554:Isotopes; D008094:Lithium