He Zhu1,2,
Ronald Ouwerkerk1,3, Richard A.E. Edden1,2, Peter B.
Barker1,2
1Russell H Morgan Department of
Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD,
United States; 2F.M. Kirby Research Center for Functional Brain
Imaging, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States; 3The
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, NIH,
Bethesda, MD, United States
A
spin echo based MEGA-MRSI sequence was developed to acquire MEGA-edited
spectra of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in an entire slice with excellent
sensitivity. Co-editing of lipid and NAA signals was greatly suppressed by a
dualband pre-saturation sequence and integrated outer volume suppression
(OVS) pulses. Experiments in normal volunteers were performed at 3 Tesla
using a 32-channel head coil. High signal-to-noise ratio spectra and
metabolic images of GABA (and glutamate) were acquired from 4.5 cm3 voxels in
a scan time of 17 minutes.