A non-invasive magnetization transfer indirect spin labeling (MISL) MRI method is developed to quantify the water exchange between cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and other tissues in the brain and to examine the age-dependence of water exchange. Method:In the pulsed MISL, we implemented a short selective pulse followed by a post-labeling delay before an MRI acquisition with a long echo time; in the continuous MISL, a train of saturation pulses was applied. MISL signal (∆Z) was obtained by the subtraction of the label MRI at −3.5 ppm from the control MRI at 200 ppm. CSF was extracted from the mouse ventricles for the MISL optimization and validation. Comparison between wild type (WT) and aquaporin-4 knockout (AQP4 −/− ) mice was performed to examine the contributions of CSF water exchange, whereas its age-dependence was investigated by comparing the adult and young WT mice. Results:The pulsed MISL method observed that the MISL signal reached the maximum at 1.5 s. The continuous MISL method showed the highest MISL signal in the fourth ventricle (∆Z = 13.5% ± 1.4%), whereas the third ventricle and the lateral ventricles had similar MISL ∆Z values (∆Z = 12.0% ± 1.8%). Additionally, significantly lower ∆Z (9.3%-18.7% reduction) was found in all ventricles for the adult mice than those of the young mice (p < 0.02). For the AQP4 −/− mice, the ∆Z values were 5.9%-8.3% smaller than those of the age-matched WT mice in the lateral and fourth ventricles, but were not significant.

Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) plays an essential role in maintaining the homeostasis of the central nervous system, providing buoyancy to the brain, 1 serving as an important route for the removal of a variety of waste products produced by cellular metabolism. 2 Some evidence supported that CSF continuously exchanges with the interstitial fluid (ISF) in its surrounding brain parenchyma, which depends on hydrostatic and osmotic forces (i.e., the

Purpose: To develop Phase Alternate LAbeling with Null recovery (PALAN) MRI methods for the quantification of interstitial to cerebrospinal fluid flow (ICF) and cerebrospinal to interstitial fluid flow (CIF) in the brain. Method: In both T1-PALAN and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC)-PALAN MRI methods, the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) signal was nulled, while the residual interstitial fluid (ISF) was labeled by alternating the phase of pulses. ICF was extracted from the difference between the recovery curves of CSF with and without labeling. Similarly, CIF was measured by the T2-PALAN MRI method by labeling CSF, which took advance of the significant T2 difference between CSF and parenchyma. Results: Both T1-PALAN and ADC-PALAN observed a rapid occurrence of ICF at 67±56 ms and 13±2 ms interstitial fluid transit times, respectively. ICF signal peaked at 1.5 s for both methods. ICF was 1153±270 ml/100ml/min with T1-PALAN in the third and lateral ventricles, which was higher than 891±60 ml/100ml/min obtained by ADC-PALAN. The results of the T2-PALAN suggested the ISF exchanging from ependymal layer to the parenchyma was extremely slow. Conclusion: The PALAN methods are suitable tools to study ISF and CSF flow kinetics in the brain.