Multiplexed magnetic resonance imaging

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has revolutionized diagnostic radiology and medicine over the past five decades^1,2. However, clinical applications of MRI are still mainly limited to visual examination of macroscopic tissue pathology^3,4. Because diseases, such as tumours, multiple sclerosis (MS) and neurodegenerative disorders, are highly heterogeneous, there is a critical need for a non-invasive imaging technology that can provide quantitative biomarkers for tissue characterization for personalized and precision medicine⁵. Here we introduce a new approach to MRI data acquisition and processing, called 'multiplexed MRI' (MRx), to achieve high-resolution simultaneous multiparametric mapping of several molecules. We demonstrate that MRx can obtain a large set of quantitative structural, physiological and molecular biomarkers of the whole brain in standard clinical settings. We further demonstrate that these biomarkers could define an effective tissue state index for disease subtyping and lesion characterization in tumours and MS. We anticipate that the new quantitative multiplexed imaging capabilities of MRx would substantially enhance the capability of MRI for diagnosis, monitoring and assessment of therapeutic efficacy of many neurological diseases and potentially transform brain imaging for both research and clinical applications.