Parallel RF Transmission based MRI Technique for Highly Sensitive Detection of Amide Proton Transfer in the Human Brain at 3T

Jochen Keupp¹, Christof Baltes², Paul R. Harvey², Johan van den Brink²

Amide proton transfer (APT)-MRI is expected to have clinical applications in oncology (enriched protein levels in tumors) and neurology (ischemic acidosis in stroke). While successful APT applications have been shown in the human brain, sensitivity was typically limited due to RF amplifier hardware specifications of the clinical systems. Herein, a novel scheme for prolonged RF saturation (≥3 sec) is demonstrated, which is based on alternated parallel RF transmission into the body-coil and bears the potential for a twofold sensitivity gain. Sequence variants are assessed for optimal sensitivity, and feasibility of APT mapping in the human head is demonstrated.