Clinical Evaluation of Brain Damage by Proton T1 Dynamics

Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique provides a valuable tool to investigate the status of edematous lesions, as well as degenerative processes in the brain owing to its high sensitivity to changes in tissue water. Recent developments of NMR in medicine are directed extensively to studying pathophysiology in the central nervous system. The dynamics of relaxation times are of special importance from the viewpoints of quantitative evaluation of intracranial lesions. In the present study, serial measurements of spin-lattice relaxation time (T1) were directed to assess the status of cerebral infarction, cerebral hemorrhage, and brain injury. Attention was focused upon the possibility of predicting irreversibility of tissue damage by relaxation time measurements.