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Abstract:
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is one of the most versatile techniques in clinical and experimental in vivo imaging. It has excellent spatial resolution but the sensitivity however is much lower than the other nuclear imaging techniques which ould be overcome by using contrast agent (CA). By
accelerating the longitudinal or transverse relaxation of water protons, CA increases the signal to noise ratio, which, in turn, positively influences the image contrast. Nowadays, more than 30% of MRI examinations benefit from the use of paramagnetic contrast agents. Further improvement came with the development of ‘smart contrast agents (SCA)’ which are capable of reflecting a change in biological activity in their local environment compared to classic contrast agent hich are mostly nonspecific and provide only anatomical
information. Many SCA have been developed showing sensitivity to pH, partial
oxygen pressure (pO2), ion and metabolite concentration, or enzyme activity. SCA showing sensitivity to Ca2+ concentration changes are of extreme importance. Ca2+ is one of the most important secondary messengers in the brain. Fluorescent imaging has greatly explored the critical role played by this ion. However the role played by Ca2+ is yet to be explored noninvasively
using MRI which doesn’t suffers from depth penetration limits like in fluorescent imaging. Our lab in MPI for biological cybernetics is dedicated in developing such probes for MRI which could reveal the dynamics of C2+
concentration changes. In my talk I’ll give a brief overview of designing strategies to develop such probes and also the recent development made in that direction.
