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Abstract #3377

Imaging of Regional Distribution of Brain Glutamate with GluCEST MRI

MAGNA25Kejia Cai1, Anup Singh1, Mohammad Haris1, Ravi Prakash Reddy Nanga1, Hari Hariharan1, Ravinder Reddy1

1CMROI, Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States


Glutamate (Glu) is the major excitatory neurotransmitters in the brain, and is likely involved in nearly all signal processing functions of the central nervous system (CNS). Based on Glu amine proton exchange saturation transfer (GluCEST) effect, recently, we demonstrated the feasibility of mapping relative changes in Glu concentration as well as pH in vivo. GluCEST provides markedly increased spatial and temporal resolution than 1H-MRS. In the current study, brain regional variation of GluCEST is investigated and compared to existing MRS and positron emission tomography (PET) studies.