An evaluation of the reproducibility of 1H-MRS GABA and GSH levels acquired in healthy volunteers with J-difference editing sequences at varying echo times

TitleAn evaluation of the reproducibility of 1H-MRS GABA and GSH levels acquired in healthy volunteers with J-difference editing sequences at varying echo times
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2020
AuthorsPrisciandaro JJ, Mikkelsen M, Saleh MG, Edden RAE
JournalMagn Reson Imaging
Volume65
Pagination109-113
Date Published2020 Jan
ISSN1873-5894
KeywordsAdult, Antioxidants, Brain, Diagnostic Tests, Routine, Female, gamma-Aminobutyric Acid, Glutathione, Gyrus Cinguli, Healthy Volunteers, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, Male, Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, Reproducibility of Results, Young Adult
Abstract

Recent advances in J-difference-edited proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H MRS) data acquisition and processing have led to the development of Hadamard Encoding and Reconstruction of MEGA-Edited Spectroscopy (HERMES) techniques, which enable the simultaneous measurement of ɣ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the primary inhibitory amino acid neurotransmitter in the central nervous system, and of glutathione (GSH), the most abundant antioxidant in living tissue, at the commonly available magnetic field strength of 3 T. However, the reproducibility of brain levels of GABA and GSH measured across multiple scans in human subjects using HERMES remains to be established. In the present study, twelve healthy volunteers completed two consecutive HERMES scans of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) to assess the test-retest reproducibility of the technique for GABA and GSH measurements at TE = 80 ms. Eleven of the twelve participants additionally completed two consecutive MEGA-PRESS scans at TE = 120 ms, with editing pulses configured for GSH acquisition, to compare the reliability of GSH in the same voxel measured using the standard MEGA-PRESS at TE = 120 ms. The primary findings of study were that, 1) the coefficient of variation (CV) of measuring GABA with HERMES was 16.7%, which is in agreement with the reliability we previously reported for measuring GABA using MEGA-PRESS; and 2) the reliability of measuring GSH with MEGA-PRESS at TE = 120 ms was more than twice as high as that for measuring the antioxidant with HERMES at TE = 80 ms (CV = 7.3% vs. 19.0% respectively). These findings suggest that HERMES and MEGA-PRESS offer similar reliabilities for measuring GABA, while MEGA-PRESS at TE = 120 ms is more reliable for measuring GSH relative to HERMES at TE = 80 ms.

DOI10.1016/j.mri.2019.10.004
Alternate JournalMagn Reson Imaging
PubMed ID31707293
PubMed Central IDPMC7164653
Grant ListP41 EB015909 / EB / NIBIB NIH HHS / United States
R01 AA025365 / AA / NIAAA NIH HHS / United States
R01 EB016089 / EB / NIBIB NIH HHS / United States
R01 EB023632 / EB / NIBIB NIH HHS / United States