He Zhu1, 2, Jochen Keupp3, Jaishri Blakeley4, Lindsay Blair4, Michael Schar1, 5, Peter B. Barker1, 2, Peter C.M. van Zijl1, 2, Jinyuan Zhou1, 2
1Department of Radiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States; 2F.M. Kirby Research Center for Functional Brain Imaging, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States; 3Philips Research, Hamburg, Germany; 4Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States; 5Philips Healthcare, Cleveland, OH, United States
Amide proton transfer (APT) image contrast is generated by selective RF labeling of amide protons of cytosolic proteins and peptides in tissue, followed by chemical exchange of this label to water protons. Currently, clinical APT imaging protocols are typically limited by scanner hardware constraints, particularly with respect to the RF amplifier duty cycle. In this study, time-interleaved parallel RF transmission (pTX) was used for 3D APT imaging. The preliminary results show that the use of the pTX-APT approach can maximize APT-MRI effects on clinical scanners and that high-quality 3D APT imaging of human brain tumors can be acquired within a clinically feasible time.