Measuring the local electrical conductivity of human brain tissue

The electrical conductivities of freshly excised brain tissues from 24 patients were measured. The diffusion-MRI of the hydrogen nuclei of water molecules from regions that were subsequently excised was also measured. Analysis of these measurements indicates that differences between samples' conductivities are primarily due to differences of their densities of solvated sodium cations. Concomitantly, the sample-to-sample variations of their diffusion constants are relatively small. This finding suggests that non-invasive in-vivo measurements of brain tissues' local sodium-cation density can be utilized to estimate its local electrical conductivity. (C) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC.