The tissue–pH value
is an important parameter to assess physiological function. The purpose of this
work was to explore the potential of three-dimensional 31P–{1H}
echo–planar spectroscopic imaging at B0 = 7 T for mapping of intracellular pH in the human calf
muscle with high spatial resolution. The acquired data demonstrate that the proposed
method allows the robust quantification of intracellular pH value of voxels with
less than 1 ml volume and therefore may give insight into the pH heterogeneity
of different muscle groups.
