Advances in hyperpolarized MR technology and pre-clinical investigations have recently led to translational studies using clinical 3T human systems. While hyperpolarization provides large increase in MR sensitivity, spectral dispersion at 3T is limited which makes assessment of various metabolic pathways difficult. This work demonstrates the feasibility of using hyperpolarized 13C-pyruvate to study brain metabolism in a whole-body human 7T system. In particular, the benefit of increased chemical shift dispersion and 1H-decoupling were tested in phantom and rat brains in vivo using hyperpolarized [1-13C]- and [2-13C]-labeled pyruvate. Longitudinal relaxation times of these hyperpolarized substrates at 7T are also reported.
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