Principal Investigator: Richard Edden, PhD
Measurements of brain biochemistry provide system-specific information of importance in the study of normal and abnormal brain development, diagnosis of neurological and oncological diseases in the brain, and for monitoring the response to treatment. This TRD will develop biomarkers of brain metabolism, using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and chemical exchange-saturation transfer (CEST) MRI. We will develop new multiplexed editing schemes for MRS, allowing the simultaneous resolution of several low-concentration metabolites of interest to clinicians and brain researchers, including neurotransmitters such as GABA, antioxidants such as glutathione, and neuromodulators such as N-acetyl-aspartyl-glutamate. We will combine these methods with MR spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) readouts and develop multi-spectrum linear combination modeling approaches for quantification. Edited CEST approaches, tuning acquisition parameters to improve specificity of metabolite detection, and CEST fingerprinting and single-shot spectral acquisition approaches will be developed. Deep learning tools for the analysis of these data will also be developed, with a particular focus on the integration of methods, and spectral-resolution enhancement and metabolic editing by MRSI-based training of CEST analyses.
Contents:
CEST metabolic imaging
Multi-metabolite editing
Quantification approaches