Angus Zoen Lau1,2, Albert P. Chen3,
Marie A. Schroeder4, Jennifer Barry2, Charles H.
Cunningham1,2
1Medical Biophysics,
University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; 2Imaging Research,
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada; 3GE
Healthcare, Toronto, ON, Canada; 4Department of Physiology,
Anatomy & Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
We demonstrate the feasibility of imaging hyperpolarized [2-13C] pyruvate and its major observable Krebs cycle metabolite, [5-13C] glutamate, in the heart, using a cardiac and respiratory-gated imaging pulse sequence in vivo (TR 2.5s, 2 slices, 30mm in-plane resolution). A spectral-spatial RF excitation was designed to selectively excite either C2 pyruvate or C5 glutamate, while avoiding excitation of the remaining resonances in the spectrum. The sequence is demonstrated in vivo in pig hearts and provides a method to measure spatially dependent changes in Krebs cycle metabolism in vivo.