RESEARCH ARTICLE A Quantitative MRI Method for Imaging Blood-Brain Barrier Leakage in Experimental Traumatic Brain Injury

. These authors contributed equally to this work. Blood-brain barrier (BBB) disruption is common following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE) MRI can longitudinally measure the transport coefficient Ktrans which reflects BBB permeability. Ktrans measurements however are not widely used in TBI research because it is generally considered to be noisy and possesses low spatial resolution. We improved spatiotemporal resolution and signal sensitivity of Ktrans MRI in rats by using a high-sensitivity surface transceiver coil. To overcome the signal drop off profile of the surface coil, a pre-scan module was used to map the flip angle (B1 field) and magnetization (M0) distributions. A series of T1-weighted gradient echo images were acquired and fitted to the extended Kety model with reversible or irreversible leakage, and the best model was selected using F-statistics. We applied this method to study the rat brain one hour following controlled cortical impact (mild to moderate TBI), and observed clear depiction of the BBB damage around the impact regions, whic