Measurement of Glycine in Gray & White Matter in the Human Brain by 1H-MRS at 7.0 T in vivo

Changho Choi¹, Sandeep Ganji¹, Abhishek Banerjee¹, Ivan Dimitrov¹, Subroto Ghose¹, Carol Tamminga¹

Measurement of glycine (Gly) in gray and white matter (GM and WM) in the human brain by 1H-MRS at 7T is reported. A Gly-optimized PRESS sequence was used for measuring Gly from various brain regions in 10 healthy volunteers. The Gly signal intensity, following the normalization to the water signal, was larger in GM-dominant regions than in WM-dominant regions. From a linear regression of the Gly estimates vs. fractional GM content, the Gly concentrations in GM and WM were estimated to be 0.99 and 0.04 mM, respectively.