Combination of DEPT & PRESS for Detection of UFA in Posterior & Medial Thigh Muscle By 13C MRS At 7T

Xing Chen¹, Anke Henning¹, Peter Boesiger¹

It has been shown that the altered fatty acid contents after supplementation are different according to the specific tissues. However, the low signal sensitivity of natural abundance 13C MRS which is so far the only way to detect unsaturated fatty acids noninvasively limits the measurement in specific positions. In this work, we apply the sequence which combines DEPT and PRESS localization on protons to in vivo detection of UFA. Theoretical calculation by the product operator formalism, phantom measurements and in vivo results from human thigh muscle at 7T showed that the sequence achieved sufficient SNR enhancement as well as precise localization. The UFA detected from posterior and medial thigh muscle on two healthy volunteers indicates that the sequence based on DEPT and PRESS is capable of assessing the fatty acids characterization in specific tissues non-invasively in vivo.