Here we describe MRI and 1H MRS protocols for the investigation of animal models (mainly mice and rats) of psychiatric disorders. The introduction provides general findings from brain imaging studies in patients with psychiatric diseases and refers to general rules regarding the use of an ...
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an important social and economic issue for our societies. The development of therapeutics against this severe dementia requires assessing the effects of new drugs in animal models thanks to dedicated biomarkers. According to the amyloid cascade hypothesi ...
Morphometry is defined as studying variations in and changes of shapes. Evaluation of shape changes in the brain is a key step in the development of new mouse models, the monitoring of different pathologies, and measuring environmental influences. Traditional morphometry was performed ...
Stroke is a disease that develops from the very acute time point of first symptoms during the next several hours and further to a chronic time period of days or even weeks. During this evolution process, a whole series of pathophysiological events takes place. Therefore, the disease is characteriz ...
There has been a tremendous amount of interest in developing new MR contrast agents for cellular and molecular imaging applications such as the visualization of tumors, highlighting areas of angiogenesis, highlighting of contrast agent-labeled therapeutic stem cells, and highli ...
The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the novice NMR imager to blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) contrast as well as remind the seasoned veteran of its beauty. Introduction to many of the factors that influence the BOLD signal is given higher priority than pursuing any subset in exquisite det ...
Molecular diffusion plays an important role in many biological phenomena. Magnetic Resonance (MR) imaging is inherently sensitive to diffusion and can be used to help understand diffusion processes. Diffusion MR imaging is most widely used for imaging the ischemic brain. Diffusion im ...
Perfusion MRI is a tool to assess the spatial distribution of microvascular blood flow. Arterial spin labeling (ASL) is shown here to be advantageous for quantification of cerebral microvascular blood flow (CBF) in rodents. This technique is today ready for assessment of a variety of murine mo ...
Intermolecular multiple-quantum coherences (iMQCs) can generate NMR signals from exceedingly small dipolar interactions between distant spins in solutions. In the last few years, these signals have been used for a wide range of applications in imaging and high-resolution spectr ...
MR oximetry includes methods for assessing tissue oxygenation. This chapter focuses on direct measurements of oxygenation. These can be divided into three methods. The first and most common has been termed BOLD MRI and relates to the quantification of deoxyhemoglobin. The second method u ...
Hyperpolarization is a technique to enhance the nuclear polarization and thereby increase the available signal in magnetic resonance (MR). This chapter provides an introduction to the concept of hyperpolarization as well as an overview of dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) and para ...
Hyperpolarized noble gases (3He and 129Xe) can provide NMR signal enhancements of 10,000 to 100,000 times that of thermally polarized gases and have shown great potential for applications in lung magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) by greatly enhancing the sensitivity and contrast. These ...
In recent years, several reporter genes have been designed for non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Here, we offer a brief summary of recent advances in MRI reporter gene technology, as well as elaborated protocols for cloning, expression, and imaging of reporter genes based on a che ...
Cell tracking by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an essential tool to understand the integration and migration of transplanted cells in vivo. At present, however, techniques to visualize cell transplants in patients are fairly limited and further development of cellular MRI is need ...
Treatment of disease can only be effective when timely and accurate diagnosis of the pathology is achieved. More precise diagnosis can be accomplished if the underlying molecular processes involved in the pathology can be imaged in vivo. This is the field of molecular imaging, which aims to vis ...
This chapter provides an overview of pulse sequences adapted to hyperpolarized MR imaging. Applications of hyperpolarized agents in aqueous solution are reviewed. Vascular (e.g., angiography, perfusion, and catheter tracking) as well as metabolic (e.g., oncology, cardiology, ne ...
Animal handling and preparation is one of the most critical aspects of in vivo NMR imaging in small animals, and involves a broad spectrum of challenges, any of which could affect data quality and reproducibility. This chapter will outline the most critical considerations in animal handling f ...
New developments in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are being achieved in two fields: methodological and technological innovations. This chapter will focus on the technological aspects of scanners, explain concepts, and give hints on how to deal with hardware-related issues. First, ...
This chapter provides an overview of how contrast in MR images can be achieved. The physical origin of the most basic contrast mechanisms is briefly explained and experiments to exploit these are discussed. Furthermore, the concept of using exogenous contrast agents is introduced.
This chapter presents the basic techniques for generating images with magnetic resonance. First, the usage of gradients for slice selection, frequency and phase encoding is explained. The concept of k-space is introduced and imperfections of the encoding methods are demonstrated by m ...