Mri quantitation of edema in focal cerebral ischemia in cats: correlation with cytochrome aa3 oxidation state

Abstract

¹H MRI permits detection of edema in the brain. In a middle cerebral artery stroke model in the cat, we found a significant correlation between an edema index based on MRI and a sensitive metabolic index of ischemia, the in vivo oxidation status of mito-chondrial cytochrome aa₃ determined by near-infrared reflectance spectrophotometry (r= −0.70, α = 0.001). This result suggests that a simple, noninvasive study using MRI can provide an index of the extent of ischemic damage in an experimental acute stroke model.