Validation of CSI-SSFP with four markers (HDO, Glucose, Glx, and Lactate) for Deuterium Metabolic Imaging in the brain at 16.4T

Motivation: DMI's faces a poor SNR, and the detection of vital Glx/lactate metabolites in the brain tumor can be compromised. Goal(s): This research aims to determine whether the optimized CSI-SSFP imaging method is effective for detecting the four biomarkers (HDO, Glucose, Glx, and Lactate) with improved SNR compared to traditional CSI in rodent brains. Approach: The approach involves comparing DMI SNR using both traditional CSI and CSI-SSFP for monitoring and imaging the metabolism of injected [6,6’-2H2]-glucose in healthy mouse brains. Results: CSI-SSFP highlights substantial enhancement of 2-3 times in SNR for Glx and lactate. Impact: DMI is promising to assess the Warburg effect associated with cancer. The CSI-SSFP method provides several folds of SNR improvement, which is critical to improve sensitivity and resolution aiming for imaging intra-tumor heterogeneity and metabolic reprograming in brain tumors.