Reproducibility of brain spectroscopy at 7T using conventional localization and spectral editing techniques

Purpose: To evaluate the reproducibility of spectroscopic measurements from the anterior cingulate (AC) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) regions at 7T using a 32-channel head coil. Materials and Methods: Spectra were acquired in four healthy subjects each scanned twice using a stimulated echo acquisition mode (STEAM) sequence, and a MEGA-PRESS-IVS sequence for gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) editing. STEAM spectra were quantified using LCModel, whereas MEGA-PRESS-IVS data were analyzed using peak integrals determined using in-house software. Mean coefficient of variation (CV) and mean absolute difference between visits were calculated. Results: For the AC STEAM dataset, the mean CV between visits was 6.2% for prominent metabolites such as N-acetylaspartate (NAA), total creatine (tCr), and total choline (tCho) and 6.3% for low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) metabolites such as glutamate (Glu), glutamine (Gln), and GABA. The mean CV between visits for the DLPFC STEAM dataset was 8.5% for prominent metabolites and 21% for lower SNR metabolites. In the AC, the reproducibility measures for GABA were superior for STEAM compared to MEGA-PRESS-IVS (mean CV of 3.5% vs. 13.6%), but the opposite pattern was observed in the DLPFC region (mean CV of 16.2% vs. 13.4%). Conclusion: 7T MR spectroscopy of the AC and DLPFC using both short TE STEAM and MEGA-PRESS-IVS sequences provide excellent reproducibility of 12 metabolites, including GABA. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2013;38:460-467. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.