Deuterium metabolic imaging in the human brain at 9.4 Tesla with high spatial and temporal resolution

PURPOSE: To present first highly spatially resolved deuterium metabolic imaging (DMI) measurements of the human brain acquired with a dedicated coil design and a fast chemical shift imaging (CSI) sequence at an ultrahigh field strength of B(0) = 9.4 T. (2)H metabolic measurements with a temporal resolution of 10 min enabled the investigation of the glucose metabolism in healthy human subjects. METHODS: The study was performed with a double-tuned coil with 10 TxRx channels for (1)H and 8TxRx/2Rx channels for (2)H and an Ernst angle 3D CSI sequence with a nominal spatial resolution of 2.97 ml and a temporal resolution of 10 min. RESULTS: The metabolism of [6,6′-(2)H(2)]-labeled glucose due to the TCA cycle could be made visible in high resolution metabolite images of deuterated water, glucose and Glx over the entire human brain. CONCLUSION: X-nuclei MRSI as DMI can highly benefit from ultrahigh field strength enabling higher temporal and spatial resolutions.