Measuring Glucose Concentrations in the Rat Brain Using TE-Averaged PRESS at 7T

Jeffrey Steinberg¹, Sendhil Velan¹

Glucose overlaps with several metabolites in the 3.2-3.9 ppm range in a typical spectrum in proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. In order to resolve the glucose peaks from neighboring peaks, spectra at multiple TE values between 60 and 95 ms were averaged, resulting in a peak and a trough at 3.7 and 3.85 ppm respectively. Using voxels in the hippocampi of six rats, the TE averaged sequence obtained glucose estimates relative to creatine of 0.43 0.07, whereas glucose estimates for data at a TE of 13 ms was 0.37 0.35. The lower standard deviation for TE-averaged data indicates a much more reliable estimate of glucose than the standard short TE PRESS sequence.