DUAL INTERLEAVED H-1 AND PROTON-DECOUPLED-P-31 IN-VIVO CHEMICAL-SHIFT IMAGING OF HUMAN BRAIN

A technique is demonstrated to obtain interleaved proton (H-1) and H-1-decoupled phosphorus (P-31) spectra of human brain using 2D CSI. A modified commercial full-body imager and a dual-tuned birdcage head-coil were employed. Because proton relaxation times are shorter than those of phosphorus, TR(H-1) can be chosen to be shorter than TR(P-31), thus permitting a H-1 acquisition to be inserted in each P-31 cycle. The scheme results in significant time savings as both CSI data sets are obtained concurrently with patient loading, coil tuning, shimming, and imaging needed to be done only once.