Monitoring of Brain Metabolites Using Proton and Deuterium MR Techniques

MR pulse for whole brain optimal Deuterium (2H) Metabolic Imaging and EPSI (echo planar spectroscopic imaging) based SLOW-edited 1H-MRSI will be developed and optimized for use at an UHF scanner at 7 Tesla. The study has 4 phases. Phase I: The 2H and 1H MRSI sequences are developed and optimized in vitro (phantoms) Phase II: Sequences are applied in vivo in healthy volunteers and further optimized Phase III: Optimal 2H 1H pulse sequences are applied in 4 cohorts of healthy volunteers, to study the effect of aging with whole brain 2H and 1H MRSI. Phase IV: application of the sequences in 4 patient groups with different diseases: Alzheimer's diseases (AD) patients, diabetes mellitus type II (DM) patients, mild cognitive impaired (MCI) patients, and high grade carotid stenosis patients (HGCS). The ultimate aim is to create for individual patient specific 3dimensional spatial resolved z-score maps (similar to FDG-PET) based on the healthy control data of phase III of the trial.