AUTHORS: van Heeswijk RB, Uffmann K, Comment A, Kurdzesau F, Perazzolo C, Cudalbu C, Jannin S, Konter J, Hautle P, van den Brandt Ben, Navon Gil, van der Klink J, Gruetter R

Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 61(6): 1489-93, June 2009

ABSTRACT

Lithium is widely used in psychotherapy. The (6)Li isotope has a long intrinsic longitudinal relaxation time T(1) on the order of minutes, making it an ideal candidate for hyperpolarization experiments. In the present study we demonstrated that lithium-6 can be readily hyperpolarized within 30 min, while retaining a long polarization decay time on the order of a minute. We used the intrinsically long relaxation time for the detection of 500 nM contrast agent in vitro. Hyperpolarized lithium-6 was administered to the rat and its signal retained a decay time on the order of 70 sec in vivo. Localization experiments imply that the lithium signal originated from within the brain and that it was detectable up to 5 min after administration. We conclude that the detection of submicromolar contrast agents using hyperpolarized NMR nuclei such as (6)Li may provide a novel avenue for molecular imaging.

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