Shortening of T₂ Relaxation Time in MRI Due to Presence of Physiological and Pathological Ferritin: Simulations Preliminary Results

Shown classical description of Néel and Brownian rotation of biogenic iron single domain magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs). They can accumulate in basal ganglia as ferritin in the physiological and pathological form, i.e. native ferritine (NF) and magnetoferritine (MF), respectively. MNPs cause shortening of T<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> relaxivity of water <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sup>H-nuclei (protons) in MRI of human brain. Different magnetic properties of ferritine forms affect protons’ relaxation rates. This behavior is modeled as Monte Carlo simulations via protons random-walk around MNPs clusters in B<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0</inf> field. Behavior of modeled free induction decay (FID) signal, as the response on a single radio-frequency (RF) excitation pulse on water samples with ferritin content of various form, cluster size, volume fraction, and B<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0</inf> is presented. These models could be used for non-invasive monitoring of neurodegenerative diseases progress or their therapy in a future.