Age Dependence of NAA and TCr Transverse Relaxation Times Determined in Hippocampus and Frontal Cortex at 3T

Bernadeta Walaszek¹, Florian Schubert¹, Ralf Mekle¹, Bernd Ittermann¹

In absolute metabolite quantification at moderate to long echo times, most often for T2 correction the global transverse relaxation times are used. However, it has been shown that the metabolite T2s may differ individually and depend on the brain region. Additionally, the process of ageing of the human brain, may affect the metabolite transverse relaxation times. Given the increasing importance of metabolite quantification in the hippocampus as well as in cortical areas of the brain, we determined T2 values of relevant brain metabolites in these brain regions using PRESS, and studied their age dependence.