Gheorghe D Mateescu¹, Chris A Flask^2,3, Allen Ye⁴, Bernadette Erokwu⁵, Michael Twieg⁶, Karishma Gupta⁵, and Mark Griswold^3,5
1Chemistry, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, United States, ²Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, United States, ³Case Western Reserve University, OH, United States, ⁴Bioengineering, University of Indiana at Chicago, IN, United States, ⁵Radiology, Case Western Reserve University, OH, United States, ⁶Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, OH, United States

Preliminary results on mice demonstrate that it is possible to simultaneously measure, in vivo, the glucose and oxygen consumption in mitochondria by Dynamic Deuterium MR, following administration of deuteriated glucose. Novel biomarkers for the bio-energetic output of cells in organs and tissues – the Mitochondrial Index and the Crossing Point of the consumption curves – are proposed; their association with the state of health of a live organism and the transferability of the method to the clinic is discussed.

Marie A Schroeder^1,2, Albert P Chen^2,3, Albert Tsui⁴, M Mitchell⁴, Jean-Francois Desjardins⁴, Golam Kabir⁴, Charles H Cunningham², and Kim A Connelly^2,4
1Singapore Bioimaging Consortium, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore, Singapore, Singapore, ²Schulich Heart Research Program, Sunnybrook Health Science Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada, ³GE-Healthcare, Toronto, ON, Canada, ⁴Keenan Research Centre in the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada

We tested the hypothesis that chronic diabetes would cause clinical signs and symptoms of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). By following hyperpolarised [1-13C]pyruvate metabolism in heart and kidneys using MRS, we defined how chronic diabetes reprogrammed carbohydrate utilisation. Diabetic rats showed evidence of HFpEF via echocardiography, pressure volume loops and histology, including preserved ejection fraction, diastolic dysfunction, fibrosis, pulmonary congestion, and nephropathy. Hyperpolarised 13C MRS revealed a shift towards lactate production in the heart and kidneys of diabetic rats, which may indicate increased gluconeogenesis and inflammation. Further study of chronic diabetic cardiomyopathy will be important in developing the first treatments for HFpEF.

Desiree Abdurrachim¹, Miranda Nabben¹, Verena Hoerr^2,3, Michael T. Kuhlmann⁴, Philipp R. Bovenkamp², Michael Schäfers⁴, Klaas Nicolay¹, Cornelius Faber², Sven Hermann⁴, and Jeanine J. Prompers^1
1Biomedical NMR, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands, ²Department of Clinical Radiology, University Hospital Münster, Münster, Germany, ³Institute of Medical Microbiology, Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany, ⁴European Institute for Molecular Imaging, Münster, Germany

Metabolic adaptations in the diabetic heart are proposed as an important contributor to the development of heart failure in diabetes patients. Using in vivo MRI,¹H-MRS, ³¹P-MRS, and PET, we investigated cardiac metabolic, energetic, and functional adaptations in non-diabetic and diabetic mice at baseline, and 1, 5, and 12 weeks after transverse aortic constriction (TAC)-induced pressure overload. While TAC resulted in progressive cardiac hypertrophy and dysfunction in non-diabetic mice, the effect of TAC on cardiac function in diabetic mice was much less prominent, which was associated with a blunted increase in cardiac glucose uptake and maintained cardiac energetics.

Choukri Mekkaoui¹, Howard H Chen¹, Yin-Ching Iris Chen¹, Marcel P Jackowski², William J Kostis¹, Timothy G Reese¹, Ronglih Liao³, and David E Sosnovik^1
1Harvard Medical School-Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, United States, ²University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, ³Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States

Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) in response to pressure overload is initially adaptive but subsequently becomes maladaptive. We used diffusion tensor MRI (DTI) to determine how myofiber orientation changes in response to LVH in aortic-banded mice. In addition, we performed gene expression analysis to determine which gene pathways were associated with these changes. We show that LVH due to pressure overload is accompanied by a marked rightward shift in fiber orientation in the left ventricular free wall and the upregulation of genes encoding for cell-cell and cell-matrix adhesion.

Giulia Ginami^1,2, Jérôme Yerly^1,2, and Matthias Stuber^1,2
1Department of Radiology, University Hospital (CHUV) and University of Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland, ²Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM), Lausanne and Geneva, Switzerland

Coronary vessel wall MRI based on dual inversion recovery (DIR) is complicated by the need to collect data during both the period of minimal cardiac motion and the optimal blood nulling time. We propose a continuous acquisition scheme throughout an extended acquisition window after DIR. Combined with golden angle radial acquisition and k-t sparse SENSE, our framework enables a fully flexible a posteriori selection of the optimal imaging time and significantly improves vessel wall conspicuity with respect to the conventional acquisition. Our framework alleviates the need of subject-specific sequence timing and improves the success rate of coronary vessel wall imaging.

Peter Opriessnig¹, Harald Mangge¹, Rudolf Stollberger², David Porter³, Hannes Deutschmann⁴, and Gernot Reishofer^5
1Clinical Institute for Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnosis, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria, ²Institute of Medical Engineering, Graz University of Technology, Austria, ³MR R&D, Siemens AG, Healthcare Sector, Erlangen, Germany, ⁴Department of Radiology, Division of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, Medical University of Graz, Austria, ⁵Department of Radiology, Division of Neuroradiology, Medical University of Graz, Austria

Multi-contrast MRI has become a well-recognized tool to study the complexity of an atherosclerotic plaque in order to predict lesion vulnerability. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) could be an additional measure that provides information on the influence of plaque components on the diffusion process, which may help to understand the formation of a complex disease. In this work, we demonstrate the feasibility to investigate the orientation of diffusion anisotropy in healthy human carotids in vivo. Tangential and radial diffusion were measured by the combination of a read-out segmented EPI (rs-EPI) with a 2D special gradient direction scheme.

Behzad Sharif¹, Reza Arsanjani¹, Hsin-Jung Yang¹, Rohan Dharmakumar¹, Noel Bairey Merz¹, Daniel S. Berman¹, and Debiao Li^1
1Biomedical Imaging Research Institute, Dept. of Biomedical Sciences, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, United States

We present a multi-slice cine first-pass perfusion imaging method capable of simultaneous detection of stress-induced myocardial perfusion defects and wall motion abnormalities in a single ungated scan using a 1-minute continuous acquisition. Our initial results in ischemic canines demonstrate that worsening of wall motion (compared to rest) in the perfusion defect territories seen in the real-time stress cine perfusion scan may be a marker of severe (high grade) coronary artery disease.

Jesse I. Hamilton¹, Yun Jiang¹, Yong Chen², Dan Ma¹, Wei-Ching Lo¹, Mark Griswold^1,2, and Nicole Seiberlich^1,2
1Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, United States, ²Radiology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, United States

A major challenge in applying MRF to myocardial tissue characterization is that respiratory and cardiac motion can introduce blurring in parameter maps or lead to failed pattern recognition. A 2D MRF acquisition is presented that employs a single breath hold and ECG triggering to simultaneously map T1, T2, and M0 within 24 heartbeats. Because the exact timing for the experiment differs for each scan due to slight differences in cardiac rhythm, scan-specific dictionaries are used for pattern matching. Six healthy volunteers were scanned at 3T, and myocardial relaxation parameters were in good agreement with literature values.

Li Feng¹, Simone Coppo², Davide Piccini^2,3, Ruth P Lim⁴, Matthias Stuber², Daniel K Sodickson¹, and Ricardo Otazo^1
1Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research (CAI2R), Department of Radiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States,²Department of Radiology, University Hospital (CHUV) and University of Lausanne (UNIL) / Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM), Lausanne, Switzerland,³Advanced Clinical Imaging Technology, Siemens Healthcare IM BM PI, Lausanne, Switzerland, ⁴Department of Radiology, Austin Health and The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

A framework for five-dimensional (5D) whole-heart MRI is described in this work. Continuously acquired 3D golden-angle radial k-space data are retrospectively sorted into a 5D (x-y-z-cardiac-respiration) image set containing one cardiac motion dimension and one respiratory motion dimension using cardiac and respiratory motion signals. The undersampled 5D images are reconstructed using compressed sensing that exploits sparsity along both cardiac and respiratory dimensions. The method enables both high isotropic spatial resolution and high temporal resolution, allowing simultaneous assessment of myocardial function and visualization of cardiac and respiratory motion-resolved coronary arteries.

Simone Coppo¹, Li Feng², Davide Piccini^1,3, Jérôme Chaptinel¹, Gabriele Bonanno¹, Gabriella Vincenti⁴, Juerg Schwitter⁴, Ricardo Otazo², Daniel K. Sodickson², and Matthias Stuber^1
1Department of Radiology, University Hospital (CHUV), University of Lausanne (UNIL), Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM), Lausanne, Switzerland, ²Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research (CAI2R), Department of Radiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, United States,³Advanced Clinical Imaging Technology, Siemens Healthcare IM BM PI, Lausanne, Switzerland, ⁴Department of Cardiology, University Hospital (CHUV), University of Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland

A novel reconstruction framework that combines dynamic compressed sensing and parallel imaging is integrated with a free-running self-navigated 4D radial whole-heart imaging technique for simultaneous coronary artery visualization and cardiac function assessment. The proposed framework enables a significant increase of the temporal resolution, as well as a significant reduction of streaking artifacts, thus increasing overall image quality compared to the standard gridding reconstruction. Initial results obtained in vivo and in humans are presented.