J-difference Editing of Lactate and Threonine in the Human Brain at 3T

Lactate is important as a source of energy and a product of metabolism, so the capability to measure lactate accurately and noninvasively by MRS is of high value. We report a new lactate editing approach that enables detection of the lactate 1.3 ppm resonance with minimal contaminations from threonine and other compounds. Narrow-band editing 180° RF pulses were implemented in 1H MR MEGA-PRESS and the sequence was optimized with numerical and phantom analyses. With data from six healthy adult subjects, the lactate and threonine concentrations in healthy brain were estimated to be 0.5±0.1 and 1.0±0.1 mM, respectively.