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Absolute quantitation of brain metabolites with respect to heterogeneous tissue compositions in 1H-MR spectroscopic volumes

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Abstract

Object

Referencing metabolite intensities to the tissue water intensity is commonly applied to determine metabolite concentrations from in vivo 1H-MRS brain data. However, since the water concentration and relaxation properties differ between grey matter, white matter and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), the volume fractions of these compartments have to be considered in MRS voxels.

Materials and methods

The impact of partial volume correction was validated by phantom measurements in voxels containing mixtures of solutions with different NAA and water concentrations as well as by analyzing in vivo 1H-MRS brain data acquired with various voxel compositions.

Results

Phantom measurements indicated substantial underestimation of NAA concentrations when assuming homogeneously composed voxels, especially for voxels containing solution, which simulated CSF (error: ≤92%). This bias was substantially reduced by taking into account voxel composition (error: ≤10%). In the in vivo study, tissue correction reduced the overall variation of quantified metabolites by up to 35% and revealed the expected metabolic differences between various brain tissues.

Conclusions

Tissue composition affects extraction of metabolite concentrations and may cause misinterpretations when comparing measurements performed with different voxel sizes. This variation can be reduced by considering the different tissue types by means of combined analysis of spectroscopic and imaging data.

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Abbreviations

1H-MRS:

Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy

rf:

Radiofrequency

T 1 and T 2 :

Longitudinal and transversal relaxation time constants

C M, C W :

Absolute concentrations of metabolites and water

I M :

Quantitated intensity of metabolite

I W :

Quantitated intensity of water

N protM :

Number of hydrogen nuclei within the metabolite molecule

GM, WM, CSF:

Brain’s grey and white matter and cerebrospinal fluid

S1, S2, S3:

Phantom solutions 1, 2 and 3

f GM, f WM, f CSF :

Relative volume fractions of GM, WM and CSF within a voxel

f S1, f S2, f S3 :

Relative volume fractions of GM, WM and CSF within a voxel

R :

Factor to consider the relaxation related signal attenuation

C 0W :

Free water concentration

α:

Relative water content in tissue

NAA, Cr, tCho:

N-acetyl-aspartate, creatine, total choline

C solutionW :

Nominal water concentration in a phantom solution

C solutionnom :

Nominal NAA concentration in a phantom solution

TR, TE, TI:

Repetition time, echo time, inversion time

FOV:

Field of view

GI, GII:

Volunteer groups 1 and 2 (each consisting of seven persons)

NAS:

Number of averaged single acquisitions

SNR:

Signal to noise ratio

FWHM:

Full width at half maximum

CRLB:

Cramer Rao lower bound

C hom :

Metabolite concentration calculated by assuming homogeneous tissue composition in MRS voxel

C het :

Metabolite concentration calculated by considering the heterogeneous tissue composition in MRS voxel

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Prevention of Diseases related to Professional Activities (KIP) founded by the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena and the Accident Prevention and Insurance Association for Food and Restaurants (Berufsgenossenschaft Nahrungsmittel und Gaststätten, BGN, Germany). A. G. acknowledges support from a stipend provided by KIP (project 1.1.29). This project was also supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG 1123/11-1) and by the Bernstein Group for Computational Neuroscience Jena (BMBF 01GQ0703). We acknowledge Mary Atterbury for her support in manuscript preparation and proof reading.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Medical Physics Group, Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology I, Jena University Hospital—Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Philosophenweg 3, Gebäude 5, 07743, Jena, Germany

    Alexander Gussew, Marko Erdtel, Patrick Hiepe, Reinhard Rzanny & Jürgen R. Reichenbach

  2. Department of Medical Physics, Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 9SY, UK

    Marko Erdtel

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  1. Alexander Gussew
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Correspondence to Alexander Gussew.

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Gussew, A., Erdtel, M., Hiepe, P. et al. Absolute quantitation of brain metabolites with respect to heterogeneous tissue compositions in 1H-MR spectroscopic volumes. Magn Reson Mater Phy 25, 321–333 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10334-012-0305-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10334-012-0305-z

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