Detecting natural abundance carbon signal of NAA metabolite within 12-cm3 localized volume of human brain using 1H-[13C] NMR spectroscopy.
NMR spectroscopy has been applied extensively to study metabolism noninvasively in the human brain and other tissues. However, it usually suffers from poor signal-to-noise ratio due to low NMR sensitivity and low metabolite concentrations. In this study, the technique of proton-observe-carbon-edited (POCE) NMR spectroscopy combined with a single-shot localization sequence was used to detect the natural abundance carbon signal of the amino acid N-acetyl aspartate from a 12-cm3 localized volume in the occipital lobe of humans at 4 T. The results suggest that NMR spectroscopy is sensitive enough to detect signals from low concentration metabolites (< 60 nmol/g) from small volumes in the human brain within several minutes of data acquisition. This reveals that in vivo NMR spectroscopy is a promising technique for detecting small metabolite changes and low traces of 13C isotopic labeling for dynamic metabolism studies aimed at investigating physiological and pathological questions.
Chen
W
W
Radiology Department, University of Minnesota, School of Medicine, Minneapolis 55455, USA. wei@geronimo.drad.umn.edu
Adriany
G
G
Zhu
X H
XH
Gruetter
R
R
Ugurbil
K
K
D001224:Aspartic Acid / Q000031:analogs & derivatives* / Q000378:metabolism; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism*; D002244:Carbon / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*
D001224:Aspartic Acid; D002244:Carbon; C000179:N-acetylaspartate