Visualization of thalamic calcium influx with quantitative susceptibility mapping as a potential imaging biomarker for repeated mild traumatic brain injury.

A key event in the pathophysiology of traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the influx of substantial amounts of Ca into neurons, particularly in the thalamus. Detection of this calcium influx in vivo would provide a window into the biochemical mechanisms of TBI with potentially significant clinical implications. In the present work, our central hypothesis was that the Ca influx could be imaged in vivo with the relatively recent MRI technique of quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM).