Interleaved multivoxel (31)P MR spectroscopy

PURPOSE: Separate measurements are required when investigating multiple exercising muscles with singlevoxel‐localized dynamic (31)P‐MRS. With multivoxel spectroscopy, (31)P‐MRS time‐series spectra are acquired from multiple independent regions during one exercise‐recovery experiment with the same time resolution as for singlevoxel measurements. METHODS: Multiple independently selected volumes were localized using temporally interleaved semi‐LASER excitations at 7T. Signal loss caused by mutual saturation from shared excitation or refocusing slices was quantified at partial and full overlap, and potential contamination was investigated in phantom measurements. During an exercise‐recovery experiment both gastrocnemius medialis and soleus of two healthy volunteers were measured using multivoxel acquisitions with a total T (R) of 6 s, while avoiding overlap of excitation slices. RESULTS: Signal reduction by shared adiabatic refocusing slices selected 1 s after the preceding voxel was between 10% (full overlap) and 20% (half overlap), in a phantom measurement. In vivo data were acquired from both muscles within the same exercise experiment, with 13–18% signal reduction. Spectra show phosphocreatine, inorganic phosphate, adenosine‐triposphate, phosphomonoesters, and phosphodiesters. CONCLUSION: Signal decrease was relatively low compared to the 2‐fold increase in information. The approach could help to improve the understanding in metabolic research and is applicable to other organs and nuclei. Magn Reson Med 77:921–927, 2017. © 2016 The Authors Magnetic Resonance in Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.