High resolution MRI and MRS: A feasibility study for the investigation of focal cerebral ischemia in mice

Combined NMR imaging and spectroscopy have been applied to mouse brain during focal cerebral ischemia. The present study evaluated the feasibility of NMR measurements on mice in order to fine‐tune the sequences and experimental setup for systematic investigations on stroke including future studies on transgenic animals. The acquisition of high quality diffusion‐weighted, perfusion‐weighted, and T2‐weighted images (DWI, PWI, T2‐WI, respectively) is demonstrated and complemented by measurements of 1H volume‐selective spectroscopy and spectroscopic imaging (SI). Despite the small volume of the mouse brain, a satisfactory signal‐to‐noise ratio can be achieved with reasonably short measurement times. C57black/6J mice with an average body weight of 25 g were studied using state‐of‐the‐art NMR sequences at 4.7 T. After induction of focal cerebral ischemia, the lesion was found clearly distinguishable in all imaging techniques. The apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) was reduced in the ischemic region, and an expansion of the affected volume was observed with ongoing ischemia time. In the 1H spectra of ischemic animals a distinct change in the concentrations of NAA and lactate was visible. This is the first report on both SI data and perfusion‐weighted imaging on mouse brain. It is demonstrated that the perfusion deficit during ischemia can be well demarcated. The spatial resolution of changes in metabolite concentrations allows the clear differentiation of elevated lactate levels in ischemic brain tissue. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.