Regional Metabolite Concentrations in Aging Human Brain: Comparison of Short-TE Whole Brain MR Spectroscopic Imaging and Single Voxel Spectroscopy at 3T

Purpose The aim of this study was to compare a recently established whole brain MR spectroscopic imaging (wbMRSI) technique using spin-echo planar spectroscopic imaging (EPSI) acquisition and the Metabolic Imaging and Data Analysis System (MIDAS) software package with single voxel spectroscopy (SVS) technique and LCModel analysis for determination of relative metabolite concentrations in aging human brain. Methods A total of 59 healthy subjects aged 20-70 years (n >= 5 per age decade for each gender) underwent a wbEPSI scan and 3 SVS scans of a 4 ml voxel volume located in the right basal ganglia, occipital grey matter and parietal white matter. Concentration ratios to total creatine (tCr) for N-acetylaspartate (NAA/tCr), total choline (tCho/tCr), glutamine (Gln/tCr), glutamate (Glu/tCr) and myoinositol (mI/tCr) were obtained both from EPSI and SVS acquisitions with either LCModel or MIDAS. In addition, an aqueous phantom containing known metabolite concentrations was also measured. Results Metabolite concentrations obtained with wbMRSI and SVS were comparable and consistent with those reported previously. Decreases of NAA/tCr and increases of line width with age were found with both techniques, while the results obtained from EPSI acquisition revealed generally narrower line widths and smaller Cramer-Rao lower bounds than those from SVS data. Conclusion The wbMRSI could be used to estimate metabolites in vivo and in vitro with the same reliability as using SVS, with the main advantage being the ability to determine metabolite concentrations in multiple brain structure simultaneously in vivo. It is expected to be widely used in clinical diagnostics and neuroscience.