Spectral editing for in vivo ¹³C magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

In vivo detection of carboxylic/amide carbons is a promising technique for studying cerebral metabolism and neurotransmission due to the very low RF power required for proton decoupling. In the carboxylic/amide region, however, there is severe spectral overlap between acetate C1 and glutamate C5, complicating studies that use acetate as an astroglia-specific substrate. There are no known in vivo MRS techniques that can spectrally resolve acetate C1 and glutamate C5 singlets. In this study, we propose to spectrally separate acetate C1 and glutamate C5 by a two-step J-editing technique after introducing homonuclear (13)C-(13)C scalar coupling between carboxylic/amide carbons and aliphatic carbons. By infusing [1,2-(13)C(2)]acetate instead of [1-(13)C]acetate the acetate doublet can be spectrally edited because of the large separation between acetate C2 and glutamate C4 in the aliphatic region. This technique can be applied to studying acetate transport and metabolism in brain in the carboxylic/amide region without spectral interference.