High spatiotemporal resolution whole-brain 2H MRS imaging (DMRSI) to differentiate grey and white matter metabolic dynamics in human brain at 7T

Deuterium MRS imaging (DMRSI) is a promising tool to quantitatively study brain glucose metabolism, but it is challenging to simultaneously achieve high spatial and temporal resolution to capture metabolite dynamics in the human brain. In this study, we applied advanced RF head coil and post-processing techniques to perform high spatiotemporal-resolution (0.7cc nominal voxel and 2.5 min) DMRSI covering entire human brain at 7T with oral administration of deuterated glucose. The results show superior DMRSI sensitivity for mapping and differentiating the TCA cycle activity in grey and white matters. This capability is critical for disease applications including brain tumor.