Brain Metabolites Proton T2 Mapping at 3 Tesla in Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis

Ivan I. Kirov¹, Lazar Fleysher¹, Roman Fleysher¹, Songtao Liu¹, Joseph Herbert², Oded Gonen¹

We tested the hypothesis that metabolite transverse (T₂) relaxation times in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) lesions and normal-appearing tissue are sufficiently similar among patients that the proton MR spectroscopy (¹H-MRS) signal variations represent actual concentration changes and not altered T₂s. Multivoxel (4 slices, 80 voxels 1 cm³ each) ¹H-MRS was used to examine the T₂ regional distributions of N-acetylaspartate, creatine and choline in the brain of seven relapsing-remitting patients. The results suggest that for metabolic quantification in MS, patient T₂s are sufficiently similar among themselves and to controls that obtaining individual regional and lesion T₂s is not needed.