Simultaneously Acquired Single- and Triple-Quantum Spectroscopic Imaging with Density-Adapted Projection Reconstruction and Time Proportional Phase Increment

Multi-quantum filtered spectroscopic imaging methods utilize the spin-3/2 characteristic of ²³Na nuclei to generate multi-quantum coherences reflecting on the binding of ²³Na⁺ to macromolecules. In this work, a spectroscopic density-adapted radial imaging modality was developed to simultaneously acquire single-quantum and triple-quantum signal under identical condition using time proportional phase increments. In vivo rat head images with 1 mm resolution were acquired in under an hour. This method may be applied to monitor the single-quantum and triple-quantum signal development in diseases such as stroke and cancer and lead to a deeper understanding of metabolic processes in healthy and diseased tissue.