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The amide proton transfer (APT) effect has emerged as a unique endogenous molecular imaging contrast mechanism with great clinical potentials. However, in vivo quantitative mapping of APT using the conventional asymmetry analysis is difficult due to the confounding Nuclear Overhauser Effect (NOE) and the asymmetry of the magnetization transfer (MT) effect. Here we showed that the asymmetry of MT contrast from immobile macromolecules is highly significant, and the wide spectral separation associated with a high magnetic field of 9.4 T delineates APT and NOE peaks in a Z-spectrum. Therefore, high resolution apparent APT and NOE maps can be obtained from measurements at three offsets. The apparent APT value was greater in gray matter compared to white matter in normal rat brain, and was sensitive to tissue acidosis and correlated well with ADC in the rat focal ischemic brain. In contrast, no ischemia-induced contrast was observed in the apparent NOE map. The concentration-dependence and the pH insensitivity of NOE were confirmed in phantom experiments. Our results demonstrate that in vivo apparent APT and NOE maps can be easily obtained at high magnetic fields, and the pH-insensitive NOE may be a useful indicator of mobile macromolecular contents.

Chemical exchange between water and labile protons from amino-acids, proteins and other molecules can be exploited to provide tissue contrast with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques. Using an off-resonance Spin-Locking (SL) scheme for signal preparation is advantageous because the image contrast can be tuned to specific exchange rates by adjusting SL pulse parameters. While the amide-proton transfer (APT) contrast is obtained optimally with steady-state preparation, using a low power and long irradiation pulse, image contrast from the faster amine-water proton exchange (APEX) is optimized in the transient state with a higher power and a shorter SL pulse. Our phantom experiments show that the APEX contrast is sensitive to protein and amino acid concentration, as well as pH. In vivo 9.4-T SL MRI data of rat brains with irradiation parameters optimized to slow exchange rates have a sharp peak at 3.5 ppm and also broad peak at −2 to −5 ppm, inducing negative contrast in APT-weighted images, while the APEX image has large positive signal resulting from a weighted summation of many different amine-groups. Brain ischemia induced by cardiac arrest decreases pure APT signal from ~1.7% to ~0%, and increases the APEX signal from ~8% to ~16%. In the middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) model, the APEX signal shows different spatial and temporal patterns with large inter-animal variations compared to APT and water diffusion maps. Because of the similarity between the chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) and SL techniques, APEX contrast can also be obtained by a CEST approach using similar irradiation parameters. APEX may provide useful information for many diseases involving a change in levels of proteins, peptides, amino-acids, or pH, and may serve as a sensitive neuroimaging biomarker.

Background Certain patterns can induce perceptual illusions/distortions and visual discomfort in most people, headaches in patients with migraine, and seizures in patients with photosensitive epilepsy. Visual stimuli are common triggers for migraine attacks, possibly because of a hyperexcitability of the visual cortex shown in patients with migraine. Precision ophthalmic tints (POTs) are claimed to reduce perceptual distortions and visual discomfort and to prevent migraine headaches in some patients. We report an fMRI visual cortical activation study designed to investigate neurological mechanisms for the beneficial effects of POTs in migraine. Methods Eleven migraineurs and 11 age- and sex-matched non-headache controls participated in the study using non-stressful and stressful striped patterns viewed through gray, POT, and control coloured lenses. Results For all lenses, controls and migraineurs did not differ in their response to the non-stressful patterns. When the migraineurs wore gray lenses or control coloured lenses, the stressful pattern resulted in activation that was greater than in the controls. There was also an absence of the characteristic low-pass spatial frequency (SF) tuning in extrastriate visual areas. When POTs were worn, however, both cortical activation and SF tuning were normalized. Both when observing the stressful pattern and under more typical viewing conditions, the POTs reduced visual discomfort more than either of the other two lenses. Conclusion The normalization of cortical activation and SF tuning in the migraineurs by POTs suggests a neurological basis for the therapeutic effect of these lenses in reducing visual cortical hyperactivation in migraine.

This paper describes the effects of dexmedetomidine (DEX) 5 the active ingredient of medetomidine which is the latest popular sedative for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in rodents 5 on multiple unit activity, local field potential (LFP), cerebral blood flow (CBF), pial vessel diameter (indicative of cerebral blood volume; CBV), and blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI. These measurements were obtained from the rat somatosensory cortex during 10-s forepaw stimulation. We found that the continuous intravascular systemic infusion of DEX (50μg/kg/h, doses typically used in fMRI studies) caused epileptic activities and that supplemental isoflurane administration of ~0.3% helped suppress the development of epileptic activities and maintained robust neuronal and hemodynamic responses up to 3 hours. Supplemental administration of nitrous oxide (N2O) in addition to DEX nearly abolished hemodynamic responses even if neuronal activity remained. Under DEX-ISO anesthesia, spike firing rate and the delta power of LFP increased, while beta and gamma power decreased compared to ISO-only anesthesia. DEX administration caused pial arteries and veins to constrict nearly equally, resulting in decreases in baseline CBF and CBV. Evoked LFP and CBF responses to forepaw stimulation were largest at a frequency of 8–10 Hz, and a non-linear relationship was observed. Similarly, BOLD fMRI responses measured at 9.4 Tesla were largest at a frequency of 10 Hz. Both pial arteries and veins dilated rapidly (artery, 32.2%; vein, 5.8%), while venous diameter changes returned to baseline slower than arteries. These results will be useful for designing, conducting and interpreting fMRI experiments under DEX sedation.