Single spin-echo T 2 relaxation times of cerebral metabolites at 14.1 T in the in vivo rat brain

Abstract

To determine the single spin-echo T2 relaxation times of uncoupled and J-coupled metabolites in rat brain in vivo at 14.1 T and to compare these results with those previously obtained at 9.4 T. Measurements were performed on five rats at 14.1 T using the SPECIAL sequence and TE-specific basis-sets for LCModel analysis. The T2 of singlets ranged from 98 to 148 ms and T2 of J-coupled metabolites ranged from 72 ms (glutamate) to 97 ms (myo-inositol). When comparing the T2s of the metabolites measured at 14.1 T with those previously measured at 9.4 T, a decreasing trend was found (p<0.0001). We conclude that the modest shortening of T2 at 14.1 T has a negligible impact on the sensitivity of the 1H MRS when performed at TE shorter than 10 ms.