Noninvasive Investigation of Cerebral Ischemia by Phosphorus Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
Brain damage in newborn infants who require intensive care commonly results from cerebral hemorrhage or ischemia leading to infarction.1 Hemorrhages are easy to detect with ultrasound2,3 or computed tomography,4 but neither of these techniques reliably identifies ischemic lesions until loss of brain substance has occurred. Phosphorus (31P) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) can be used to measure, noninvasively, the relative concentrations of mobile phosphorus compounds involved in energy metabolism in living systems,5 including the brain of animals in vivo.6,7 Intracellular pH can also be estimated. With the introduction of surface radiofrequency coils6 and topical NMR,8 it has recently become possible to make measurements in human subjects, and these methods are already proving valuable for exploring disorders of muscle (references 9 to 11, and M. J. Dawson, R.H.T. Edwards, R. E. Gordon, et al, unpublished data, 1982).