Technical development of sodium magnetic resonance imaging of the human knee

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Engineering advances of hardware and software over the last 25 years have made magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) indispensable for the diagnosis and improved understanding of many human diseases and disorders. Routine clinical MRI measures signal from the hydrogen nucleus (i.e. proton, 1H) of water and it is unique differences in the water properties of tissue that yields image contrast. However, with the appropriate engineering, MRI can acquire signal from a different nucleus, namely the naturally abundant sodium (23Na) ion within the body. Sodium is linked directly to proper cell function, and may provide evidence of tissue injury despite normal appearance on conventional MRI. Sodium MRI is inherently very challenging because of low sensitivity due to sodium's low concentration in tissue and complicated physics responses. Therefore, sodium MRI is a non-standard imaging technique not available on most clinical 1.5T (i.e. strength of the magnetic field) MRI scanners because of the lack of appropriate electronics and specialized imaging pulse sequences. Imaging is more sensitive if the MRI scanner has a very strong magnetic field. This proposal will take advantage of a very strong "triple strength" MRI scanner (4.7T) located at the University of Alberta.