Synchronous Radial ¹H and ²³Na Dual-Nuclear MRI on a Clinical MRI System, Equipped With a Broadband Transmit Channel

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
• Biophysics

Background:

• Simultaneous acquisition of proton (1H) and sodium (23Na) MRI data is challenging.
• Current methods often require hardware modifications or increase scan times.
• Dual-nuclear imaging offers complementary physiological information.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a method for synchronous 1H and 23Na MRI acquisition on a 3T clinical system.
• To achieve this without internal hardware modifications.
• To demonstrate the technique using both Cartesian and radial k-space sampling.

Main Methods:

• Implemented synchronous dual-nuclear imaging by down-mixing the 1H signal to the 23Na frequency.
• Interleaved 1H/23Na transmit pulses within Cartesian and radial sequences.
• Utilized phase stabilization for the 1H signal to mitigate mixing effects.

Main Results:

• Achieved synchronous 1H/23Na-GRE imaging.
• Acquisition time was reduced by half compared to sequential imaging.
• Demonstrated successful 23Na image acquisition without increasing 1H acquisition time.

Conclusions:

• Presents a viable technique for synchronous 1H/23Na MRI.
• Requires only minor custom hardware, not commercial scanner modification.
• Enables faster and more efficient dual-nuclear MRI acquisition.