Comparison of Two Fast MR Acquisition Strategies for Simultaneously Imaging of PCr and γ-ATP in the Human Brain at 9.4T

Aiming Lu¹, Ian C. Atkinson¹, Keith R. Thulborn¹

The PCr/γ-ATP concentration ratio provides an important measure of the balance of fluxes between the anabolic and catabolic ATP pathways. The low MR signals of these compounds demand tailored efficient data acquisition strategies to be used for imaging. The performance of a recently proposed acquisition strategy termed SIMPLE-flexTPI and its equivalent with a RARE readout, termed SIMPLE-RARE has been investigated. Our results showed that both the sequences achieved comparable SNR efficiency for PCr imaging. However, the SIMPLE-flexTPI sequence performed better for γ-ATP imaging due to its short TE capability, and therefore is more suitable for mapping the PCr/γ-ATP ratio.