%0 Journal Article
%T Yet more evidence that non-aqueous myelin lipids can be directly imaged with ultrashort echo time (UTE) MRI on a clinical 3T scanner: a lyophilized red blood cell membrane lipid study.
%A Shin SH
%A Moazamian D
%A Suprana A
%A Zeng C
%A Athertya JS
%A Carl M
%A Ma Y
%A Jang H
%A Du J
%J Neuroimage
%V 296
%N 0
%D 2024 Aug 1
%M 38830440
%F 7.4
%R 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2024.120666
%X Direct imaging of semi-solid lipids, such as myelin, is of great interest as a noninvasive biomarker of neurodegenerative diseases. Yet, the short T2 relaxation times of semi-solid lipid protons hamper direct detection through conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) pulse sequences. In this study, we examined whether a three-dimensional ultrashort echo time (3D UTE) sequence can directly acquire signals from membrane lipids. Membrane lipids from red blood cells (RBC) were collected from commercially available blood as a general model of the myelin lipid bilayer and subjected to D2O exchange and freeze-drying for complete water removal. Sufficiently high MR signals were detected with the 3D UTE sequence, which showed an ultrashort T2* of ∼77-271 µs and a short T1 of ∼189 ms for semi-solid RBC membrane lipids. These measurements can guide designing UTE-based sequences for direct in vivo imaging of membrane lipids.