Magnetic resonance imaging of experimental cerebral ischemia

In the spectroscopic experiment on excised rat brain (cortex, white matter, hippocampus and thalamus for normal and ischemia-laden brain), T1 and T2 relaxation times and water content were determined. The ischemic insult was induced for 60 min by the method of Pulsinelli followed by 60 min of reperfusion. All of the T1, T2, and water content significantly increased in the ischemic tissue. Gray-white difference was evident in T1 and T1 was linearly correlated with the water content of the tissue. T2 way by far prolonged in the ischemic tissue compared with the increase in the water content, showing greater sensitivity of T2 for detection of ischemia. In the imaging experiment, coronal NMR imaging at 0.5 tesla was performed employing proton density-weighted saturation recovery (TR = 1.6 s, TE = 14 ms), T1-weighted inversion recovery (TR = 1.6 s, TI = 300 ms, TE = 14 ms) and T2-weighted spin echo (TR = 1.6 s, TE = 106 ms) pulse sequences. Spatial resolution of the images was excellent (0.3 - 0.5 mm) and the imaging of a gerbil brain clearly delineated anatomy separating cortex, white matter, hippocampus and thalamus. Hemispheric ischemia of a gerbil brain was detected as early as 30 min after occlusion of the carotid artery in T2-weighted images and the evolution of the lesion was clearly picturized in T1- and T2-weighted images. On the other hand. SR images were far less sensitive. Caluculated T1 and T2 relaxation times by the pixel-to-pixel computation indicated progress of the lesion and excellently correlated with the water content of the tissue (r = 0.892 and 0.744 for T1 and T2, respectively). (J.P.N.)