Research Paper|Volume 15, Issue 24|pp 14945—14956

Imaging of brain clearance pathways via MRI assessment of the glymphatic system

Yi He^1,², Jitian Guan¹, Lingfeng Lai¹, Xiaolei Zhang¹, Beibei Chen¹, Xueqing Wang², Renhua Wu¹

¹Department of Medical Imaging, Second Affiliated Hospital, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China
²Department of Ultrasound, Shantou Central Hospital, Shantou, Guangdong, China

* Co-first author

Received: July 25, 2023Accepted: November 3, 2023Published: December 26, 2023

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.205322

Copyright: © 2023 He et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Glymphatic clearance dysfunction may play an important role in a variety of neurodegenerative diseases and the progression of ageing. However, in vivo imaging of the glymphatic system is challenging. In this study, we describe an MRI method based on chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) of the Angiopep-2 probe to visualize the clearance function of the glymphatic system. We injected rats with Angiopep-2 via the tail vein and performed in vivo MRI at 7 T to track differences in Angiopep-2 signal changes; we then applied the same principles in a bilateral deep cervical lymph node ligation rat model and in ageing rats. We demonstrated the feasibility of Angiopep-2 CEST for visualizing the clearance function of the glymphatic system. Finally, a pathological assessment was performed. Within the model group, the deep cervical lymph node ligation group and the ageing group showed higher CEST signal than the control group. We conclude that this new MRI method can visualize clearance in the glymphatic system.