Constrained optimized water suppression for 1H MR spectroscopy
Corresponding Author
Kay Chioma Igwe
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, New York, New York, USA
Correspondence
Kay Chioma Igwe, M.S. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University in the City of New York, 3227 Broadway, New York, NY 10027, USA.
Email: [email protected]
Search for more papers by this authorMartin Gajdošík
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, New York, New York, USA
Search for more papers by this authorChristoph Juchem
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, New York, New York, USA
Department of Radiology, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, USA
High Field MR Center, Center for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Search for more papers by this authorKarl Landheer
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, New York, New York, USA
Regeneron Genetics Center, Tarrytown, New York, USA
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Kay Chioma Igwe
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, New York, New York, USA
Correspondence
Kay Chioma Igwe, M.S. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University in the City of New York, 3227 Broadway, New York, NY 10027, USA.
Email: [email protected]
Search for more papers by this authorMartin Gajdošík
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, New York, New York, USA
Search for more papers by this authorChristoph Juchem
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, New York, New York, USA
Department of Radiology, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, USA
High Field MR Center, Center for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Search for more papers by this authorKarl Landheer
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, New York, New York, USA
Regeneron Genetics Center, Tarrytown, New York, USA
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
Purpose
Water suppression is a necessary component to standard MR spectroscopy experiments due to the approximately 5000–10 000-fold higher water concentration and signal intensity compared with that of the metabolites and macromolecules of interest. Here, a novel algorithm referred to as constrained optimized water suppression (COWS) was developed, which enables generation of effective water suppression modules with an arbitrary number of radiofrequency (RF) pulses, and flexibly accommodates minimum durations between pulses, minimum total module duration, and maximum flip angles.
Methods
We use the COWS algorithm to create a water-suppression module with seven pulses, the same number of RF pulses as typical VAPOR7, at a reduced module duration of 236 ms, referred to as COWS(7;236), as well as one at the typical VAPOR duration but with an increased number of RF pulses, referred to as COWS(12;626). Experimentally, both COWS schemes were compared with variable power radio frequency pulses with optimized relaxation delays (VAPOR) using single-voxel spectroscopy in the prefrontal cortex, the posterior frontal lobe, and the occipital lobe from data collected from 10 participants on a 3T Siemens MRI scanner.
Results
We found that both COWS(7;236) and COWS(12;626) perform similar to VAPOR7 for metabolites, whereas COWS(7;236) had improved performance than VAPOR for macromolecules at a reduced 236-ms duration.
Conclusion
COWS can be used to develop flexible study-specific water suppression that can perform similarly for metabolite spectra or with improved performance for macromolecule spectra compared with VAPOR7, at a lower module duration.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Karl Landheer is an employee and shareholder of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. The work presented here was performed independently of his employer.
Supporting Information
| Filename | Description |
|---|---|
| Supplementary_Material.pdfPDF document, 2.8 MB | Figure S1. Exemplary representation of voxel placement in a T1-weighted anatomical brain MRI of 1 subject in prefrontal cortex (A; red), posterior frontal lobe (B; blue), and the occipital lobe (C; yellow). Figure S2. Metabolite spectra from each participant, per each voxel location (prefrontal cortex, posterior frontal lobe, and occipital lobe). The amplitude of the residual water signal is located within a 0.4-ppm range around water (blue). As can be seen, excellent water suppression (i.e., water signal comparable with N-acetylaspartate [NAA] signal) was attained for all combinations of region and crusher scheme for all subjects. Figure S3. Macromolecule spectra from each participant, per each voxel location (prefrontal cortex, posterior frontal lobe, and occipital lobe). The amplitude of the residual water signal is located within a 0.4-ppm range around water (blue). Figure S4. Water-suppression efficiency of VAPOR7 divided by COWS(7;236). Regions less than 1 indicate regions where constrained optimized water suppression (COWS) is expected to perform better, while regions greater than 1 are regions where variable power radiofrequency pulses with optimized relaxation delays (VAPOR) performs better. As can be seen, although COWS(7;236) performs better over most regions, there are certain regions where VAPOR performs substantially better. |
Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.
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