Background/Aim: Sodium (23Na) MR imaging is a noninvasive MRI technique that has been shown to be sensitive to visualize biochemical information about tissue viability, their cell integrity, and cell function in various studies. The aim of this study was to evaluate differences in regional brain 23Na signal intensity between Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and healthy controls to preliminarily evaluate the capability of 23Na imaging as a biomarker for AD. Patients and Methods: A total of 14 patients diagnosed with AD were included: 12 in the state of dementia and 2 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 12 healthy controls (HC); they were all scanned on a 3T clinical scanner with a double tuned 1H/23Na birdcage head coil. After normalizing the signal intensity with that of the vitreous humor, relative tissue sodium concentration (rTSC) was measured after automated segmentation in the hippocampus, amygdala, basal ganglia, white matter (WM) and grey matter (GM) in both cerebral hemispheres. Results: Patients with AD showed a significant increase in rTSC in comparison to healthy controls in the following brain regions: WM 13.6%; p=0.007, hippocampus 12.9%; p=0.003, amygdala 18.9%; p=0.0007. Conclusion: 23Na-MRI has the potential to be developed as a useful biomarker for the diagnosis of AD.

中文翻译：

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钠 (23Na) MR 成像作为阿尔茨海默病患者神经退行性变化的生物标志物和预测因子的评估

背景/目的：钠 (23Na) MR 成像是一种非侵入性 MRI 技术，在各种研究中已被证明对可视化有关组织活力、细胞完整性和细胞功能的生化信息非常敏感。本研究的目的是评估阿尔茨海默病 (AD) 和健康对照之间区域脑 23Na 信号强度的差异，以初步评估 23Na 成像作为 AD 生物标志物的能力。患者和方法：共纳入14例确诊为AD的患者：12例痴呆，2例轻度认知障碍（MCI），12例健康对照（HC）；它们都在带有双调谐 1H/23Na 鸟笼头线圈的 3T 临床扫描仪上进行了扫描。将信号强度与玻璃体液的信号强度归一化后，在两个大脑半球的海马、杏仁核、基底神经节、白质 (WM) 和灰质 (GM) 中自动分割后测量相对组织钠浓度 (rTSC)。结果：与健康对照相比，AD 患者在以下脑区的 rTSC 显着增加：WM 13.6%；p=0.007，海马体 12.9%；p=0.003，杏仁核 18.9%；p=0.0007。结论：23Na-MRI 有潜力成为诊断 AD 的有用生物标志物。