Amide proton transfer (APT) MRI is sensitive to ischemic tissue acidosis and has been increasingly used as a research tool to investigate disrupted tissue metabolism during acute stroke. However, magnetization transfer asymmetry (MTRasym) analysis is often used for calculating APT contrast, which only provides pH-weighted images. In addition to pH- dependent APT contrast, in vivo MTRasym is subject to a baseline shift (ΔMTR′asym) attributable to the slightly asymmetric magnetization transfer (MT) effect. Additionally, APT contrast approximately scales with T1 relaxation time. Tissue relaxation time may also affect the experimentally obtainable APT contrast via saturation efficiency and RF spillover effects. In this study, we acquired perfusion, diffusion, relaxation and pH-weighted APT MRI data, and spectroscopy (MRS) in an animal model of acute ischemic stroke. We modeled in vivo MTRasym as a superposition of pH-dependent APT contrast and a baseline shift ΔMTR′asym (i.e., MTRasym=APTR(pH) + ΔMTR′asym), and quantified tissue pH. We found pH of the contralateral normal tissue to be 7.03 ± 0.05 and the ipsilateral ischemic tissue pH was 6.44 ± 0.24, which correlated with tissue perfusion and diffusion rates. In summary, our study established an endogenous and quantitative pH imaging technique for improved characterization of ischemic tissue acidification and metabolism disruption.

Chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) imaging is sensitive to dilute labile proton and microenvironment properties such as pH and temperature, and provides vital information complementary to the conventional MRI methods. Whereas the Bloch equations coupled by exchange terms (i.e., Bloch-McConnell equations) have been utilized to quantify 2-pool CEST contrast, it is tedious to extend the Bloch-McConnell equations to describe CEST contrast beyond 4 saturation transfer sites. Hence, it is necessary to develop a scalable yet reasonably accurate numerical solution to describe the complex multi-pool CEST contrast. It is postulated here that the multi-pool CEST contrast can be quantified by modifying the classic 2-pool model. Although the direct exchange among labile proton groups is often negligible, labile protons may be coupled indirectly through their interaction with bulk water protons, which has to be quantified. The coupling term was solved empirically, and the proposed simplified solution was shown in good agreement with the conventional simulation. Moreover, the proposed solution is scalable, and can be easily extended to describe multi-pool CEST contrast. In sum, our study established a simplified and scalable, yet reasonably accurate numerical solution, suitable for quantitatively describing multi-pool CEST contrast.

Chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) MRI is increasingly used to probe mobile proteins and microenvironment properties, and shows great promise for tumor and stroke diagnosis. However, CEST MRI contrast mechanism is complex, depending not only on the CEST agent concentration, exchange and relaxation properties, but also varying with experimental conditions such as magnetic field strength and RF power. Hence, it remains somewhat difficult to quantify apparent CEST MRI contrast for properties such as pH, temperature and protein content. In particular, CEST MRI is susceptible to RF spillover effects in that RF irradiation may directly saturate the bulk water MR signal, leading to an optimal RF power at which the CEST contrast is maximal. Whereas RF spillover is generally considered an adverse effect, it is noted here that the optimal RF power strongly varies with exchange rate, although with negligible dependence on labile proton concentration. An empirical solution suggested that optimal RF power may serve as a sensitive parameter for simultaneously determining the labile proton content and exchange rate, hence, allowing improved characterization of the CEST system. The empirical solution was confirmed by numerical simulation, and experimental validation is needed to further evaluate the proposed technique.

A magic asymmetric gradient stimulated echo (MAGSTE) sequence was recently proposed to improve molecular diffusion measurements in the presence of spatially varying background gradients. Its effectiveness has been demonstrated previously with simulated background gradients and in phantoms that contain bulk susceptibility differences. In this study, we investigated the MAGSTE technique in microscopically heterogeneous systems, and compared it with the conventional bipolar pulsed gradient stimulated echo (bPGSTE) sequence. We demonstrated that the MASGTE measurements, compared to the bPGSTE method, varied significantly less when the diffusion encoding/decoding interval (δ) was changed. In addition, the MAGSTE technique provided good characterization of the surface area-to-volume ratio for heterogeneous systems investigated in this study. In sum, this study showed that the MAGSTE technique provided diffusion measurements superior to those of the bPGSTE sequence, especially in the presence of severe heterogeneous background gradients.

Chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) MRI is capable of measuring dilute labile protons and microenvironment properties; however, the CEST contrast is also dependent upon experimental conditions, particularly, the RF irradiation scheme. Although continuous-wave (CW) RF irradiation has been conventionally utilized, the RF pulse duration or duty cycle are limited on most clinical systems, for which pulsed RF irradiation must be chosen. Here, conventional numerical simulation was extended to describe pulsed-CEST MRI contrast as a function of RF pulse parameters (i.e., RF pulse duration and flip angle) and labile proton properties (i.e., exchange rate and chemical shift). For diamagnetic CEST agents undergoing slow/intermediate chemical exchange, our simulation showed a linear regression relationship between the optimal mean RF power for pulsed-CEST MRI and that of CW-CEST MRI. Worth noting, the optimized pulsed-CEST contrast was approximately equal to that of CW-CEST MRI for exchange rates below 50 s−1, as confirmed experimentally using a multi-compartment pH phantom. Moreover, acute stroke animals were imaged with both pulsed- and CW- amide protons CEST MRI, which showed similar contrast. In summary, our study elucidated the RF irradiation dependence of pulsed-CEST MRI contrast, providing useful insights to guide its experimental optimization and quantification.

The ischemic tissue becomes acidic after initiation of anaerobic respiration, which may result in impaired tissue metabolism and, ultimately, in severe tissue damage. Although changes in the major cerebral metabolites can be studied using magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopy (MRS)-based techniques, their spatiotemporal resolution is often not sufficient for routine examination of fast-evolving and heterogeneous acute stroke lesions. Recently, pH-weighted MR imaging (MRI) has been proposed as a means to assess tissue acidosis by probing the pH-dependent chemical exchange of amide protons from endogenous proteins and peptides. In this study, we characterized acute ischemic tissue damage using localized proton MRS and multiparametric imaging techniques that included perfusion, diffusion, pH, and relaxation MRI. Our study showed that pH-weighted MRI can detect ischemic lesions and strongly correlates with tissue lactate content measured by 1H MRS, indicating lactic acidosis. Our results also confirmed the correlation between apparent diffusion coefficient and lactate; however, no significant relationship was found for perfusion, T1, and T2. In summary, our study showed that optimized endogenous pH-weighted MRI, by sensitizing to local tissue pH, remains a promising tool for providing a surrogate imaging marker of lactic acidosis and altered tissue metabolism, and augments conventional techniques for stroke diagnosis.

Chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) MRI is a versatile imaging technique for measuring microenvironment properties via dilute CEST labile groups. Conventionally, CEST MRI is implemented with a long RF irradiation module, followed by fast image acquisition to obtain the steady state CEST contrast. Nevertheless, the sensitivity, scan time and spatial coverage of the conventional CEST MRI method may not optimal. Our study proposed a segmented RF labeling scheme that includes a long primary RF irradiation module to generate the steady state CEST contrast and repetitive short secondary RF irradiation module immediately after the image acquisition so as to maintain the steady state CEST contrast for multi-slice acquisition and signal averaging. The proposed modified CEST MRI method was validated experimentally with a tissue-like pH phantom, and optimized for the maximal contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). In addition, the proposed sequence was evaluated for imaging ischemic acidosis via pH-weighted endogenous amide proton transfer (APT) MRI, which showed similar contrast as conventional APT MRI. In sum, a fast multi-slice relaxation self-compensated CEST MRI sequence was developed, with significantly improved sensitivity.

Multiscale agent-based modeling (MABM) has been widely used to simulate Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) and its progression. At the intracellular level, the MABM approach employs a system of ordinary differential equations to describe quantitatively specific intracellular molecular pathways that determine phenotypic switches among cells (e.g. from migration to proliferation and vice versa). At the intercellular level, MABM describes cell-cell interactions by a discrete module. At the tissue level, partial differential equations are employed to model the diffusion of chemoattractants, which are the input factors of the intracellular molecular pathway. Moreover, multiscale analysis makes it possible to explore the molecules that play important roles in determining the cellular phenotypic switches that in turn drive the whole GBM expansion. However, owing to limited computational resources, MABM is currently a theoretical biological model that uses relatively coarse grids to simulate a few cancer cells in a small slice of brain cancer tissue. In order to improve this theoretical model to simulate and predict actual GBM cancer progression in real time, a graphics processing unit (GPU)-based parallel computing algorithm was developed and combined with the multi-resolution design to speed up the MABM. The simulated results demonstrated that the GPU-based, multi-resolution and multiscale approach can accelerate the previous MABM around 30-fold with relatively fine grids in a large extracellular matrix. Therefore, the new model has great potential for simulating and predicting real-time GBM progression, if real experimental data are incorporated.

Amide proton transfer (APT) imaging is a variant of magnetization transfer (MT) imaging, in which the contrast is determined by a change in water intensity due to chemical exchange with saturated amide protons of endogenous mobile proteins and peptides. In this study, eight Fisher 344 rats implanted with 9L gliosarcoma cells and six nude rats implanted with human glioblastoma cells were imaged at 4.7 T. There were increased signal intensities in tumors in the APT-weighted images. The contrast of APT imaging between the tumor and contralateral brain tissue was about 3.9% in water intensity (1.49% ± 0.66% versus −2.36% ± 0.19%) for the more uniformly hypercellular 9L brain tumors, and it was reduced to 1.6% (−1.18% ± 0.60% versus −2.77% ± 0.42%) for the human glioblastoma xenografts that contained hypocellular zones of necrosis. The preliminary results show that the APT technique at the protein level may provide a unique MRI contrast for the characterization of brain tumors.