Florian Schubert1, Ralf Mekle1, Simone Khn2, Jrgen Gallinat3, Bernd Ittermann1
1Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Berlin, Germany; 2Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium; 3Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charit University Medicine
MEGA editing has long been the method of choice for determination of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA. Novel spin echo based methods enabling ultrashort TE being potential competitors, we compared MEGA-PRESS and the SPECIAL technique that allows for very short TE. Spectra were acquired on 36 healthy subjects from 25x40x20mm3 comprising the anterior cingulate cortex using MEGA-PRESS at TE=68 ms and SPECIAL at TE=6.6 ms. GABA was fitted reliably (CRLB<20%) in all SPECIAL and 31 MEGA-PRESS spectra. Concentration estimates agreed reasonably well and were correlated. An added advantage of SPECIAL are good fit results for up to 12 more metabolites.