Imaging of Regional Distribution of Brain Glutamate with GluCEST MRI

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

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.