Jimin Ren1,
Baolian Yang2, Ivan E. Dimitrov2, A. Dean Sherry1,
3, Craig R. Malloy1, 4
1Advanced
Imaging Research Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center,
Dallas, TX, United States; 2Philips Medical System, Cleveland, OH,
United States; 3Department of Chemistry, University of Texas at
Dallas, Richardson, TX, United States; 4VA North Texas Health Care
System, Dallas, TX, United States
Phosphate exchange between PCr and gama-ATP is essential for energy homeostasis in skeletal muscle. The creatine kinase-mediated reaction is conventionally studied by MT technique, often using saturation pulses with high B1 power and long duration. It suffers from the pitfall of large spillover artifact, diminished CEST dynamic range, and increased SAR exposure. We demonstrated it is feasible to use a train of frequency-selective pulses with low saturation power, short saturation time and decreased saturation duty cycle, for generating CEST effect. This was illustrated in the Z-profiles of both PCr and gama-ATP in human skeletal muscle at 7T.