Evita Wiegers

Keywords: Contrast mechanisms: Spectroscopy

Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) provides a unique window into tissue composition and metabolism. Its integration into clinical practice has paved the way for a multitude of applications. This educational session delves into the diverse clinical landscape where MRS plays a role, including the brain tumors, neurodegenerative disorders, and neonatal encephalopathies

Saadallah Ramadan, Oun Al-iedani

Keywords: Body: Body, Contrast mechanisms: Spectroscopy, Education Committee: Clinical MRI

Motivation:MR Spectroscopy (MRS) offers a unique perspective into the body's biochemistry, providing insights into various diseases beyond what conventional imaging techniques can reveal.
Goal(s):To elucidate the clinical applications of MRS, highlighting its role in diagnosing and monitoring diseases.
Approach:To explore MRS techniques, examining its integration with MRI, and discussing specific applications in various pathologies through case studies and recent research.
Results:MRS's effectiveness in precise diagnosis and treatment monitoring,revealing its potential in clinical scenarios from cancer to metabolic disorders.
Impact:MRS's capabilities are highlighted, prompting further research into its diagnostic precision. This enables clinicians to transform how they care for their patients.

André Döring

Keywords: Contrast mechanisms: Diffusion-Weighted MR Spectroscopy, Contrast mechanisms: Diffusion

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) allows quantifying concentrations of cell-type specific metabolites. This enabled to monitor metabolic pathways. However, alongside metabolic changes, alterations in cellular microstructure represent pivotal pathomechanistic shifts in the onset and progression of neurodegenerative-diseases (e.g., glial morphology in neuroinflammation or neuronal integrity in cerebral atrophy). By integrating diffusion-weighting into MRS (dMRS), we can measure the diffusion properties of individual, celltype-specific metabolites that can serve as probes for cellular microstructure. In combination with simulation techniques, enabling an absolute quantification of cellular-features, dMRS holds immense promise in offering a new class of biomarkers for identifying cell-type specific (patho)morphological alterations.

Francesca Branzoli

Keywords: Contrast mechanisms: Spectroscopy, Neuro: Brain function

Functional MRS (fMRS) aims to measure, noninvasively, subtle changes in metabolic concentrations upon neural activation induced by sensory or cognitive tasks. fMRS may provide insights onto energy metabolism and brain function that are not captured by functional MRI, which is based on the blood-oxygenation level dependent effect. In this presentation, I will provide an overview of the metabolic changes that have been detected during neuronal activity and will discuss how these findings contributed to our knowledge of brain energy metabolism and neurotransmission. FMRS technical challenges and limitations will also be reviewed.

Nirbhay Yadav

Keywords: Contrast mechanisms: CEST & MT, Contrast mechanisms: Molecular Imaging, Physics & Engineering: Physics

Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer (CEST) signals are often not visible in the MRS spectrum due to exchange-dependent line broadening and/or the effects of water presaturation transferring to solute signals. Conversely, CEST relies on the presaturation of solute signals transferring to water and then detecting the accumulated partial saturation of water. This process retains the molecular specificity of spectroscopy techniques and, the repeated label-tranfer effect during the presaturation period, results in a sensitivity enhancement that is orders of magnitude beyond the solute molecular concentration. This presentation will describe several different types of CEST signals and factors that determine their amplitude.

Yoichi Takakusagi

Keywords: Contrast mechanisms: Non-proton, Contrast mechanisms: Spectroscopy, Contrast mechanisms: Hyperpolarized MR (Non-Gas)

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) detects the nuclear spin behavior of observable nuclides as spectra or images using radio frequency (RF) pulses. The H nucleus, which is a component in water molecules that make up 65-70% of the human body, is the main nuclide responsible for MR image acquisition. On the other hand, there are some X-nuclei, which can also be observed via NMR and possess distinctive characteristics unlike H. In this presentation, representative X-nuclei and the biomolecules containing the nuclei will be introduced, associating with the relationship with commonly used MRI elemental techniques.

Qingjia Bao

Fabian Niess

Keywords: Contrast mechanisms: Deuterium

Deuterium metabolic imaging is an emerging magnetic resonance technique for noninvasive imaging of glucose metabolism. Short relaxation times allows 3D imaging with reasonable spatial resolution in clinical feasible scan times using conventional phase encoding approaches. Over the last few years this method has been used extensively by the majority of scientific sites from ultra-high to clinical magnetic field strengths. Recently, novel approaches have been presented to simultaneously obtain complementary anatomical data, boost the achievable SNR and accelerate data acquisition to achieve higher spatial resolution without increasing scan times.  This presentation summarises recent developments of advanced methods in deuterium metabolic imaging.