Human brain glucose metabolism mapping using multislice 2D ¹H-¹³C correlation HSQC spectroscopy

A method for multivolume 2D ¹H-¹³C correlation spectroscopy, multislice heteronuclear single quantum coherence (HSQC), is proposed. This permits human brain metabolism from glucose to amino acids to be followed using a 2-T whole-body scanner. The modifications from the conventional HSQC are that the 180°(¹³C) and 180°(¹H) pulses are separated in time in the preparation period and that the 180°(¹³C) pulse is applied at 1/(4J(CH)) before the 90°(¹H) polarization transfer (PT) pulse. The preparation (echo) time can be set longer than 1/(2J(CH)) so that, even in a whole-body system, slice-selective pulses and gradients can be applied. Another modification is that the 90°(¹H) reverse PT pulses after the creation of 21(z)S(z) are used as multislice pulses. The time-course of glutamate C4 could be followed with 15-min temporal resolution from the HSQC spectra obtained from the brains of volunteers after the oral administration of glucose C1, and the maximum S/N was 3. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.