NMR in biomedicine
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Brain temperature is important in stroke and trauma. In birth asphyxia, hypothermia improves outcome, but local brain temperature information is needed to optimise therapy. The proton MRS water chemical shift (δ(water) ) is temperature dependent, and the in vivo brain temperature has often been estimated by measuring δ(water) relative to the N-acetylaspartate (NAA) singlet methyl resonance. ⋯ AWC with T(Cho) , T(Cr) and T(NAA) weighted by the squared Cho, Cr and NAA peak amplitudes provided the smallest intersubject standard deviations: Thal, 0.45°C; OP, 0.33°C (for T(NAA) values of 0.65°C and 1.12°C, respectively). AWC provided resilience against simulated pathological alterations in Cho, Cr and NAA peak amplitudes, with Thal and OP T(AWC) changing by less than 0.04°C. AWC improves both intersubject reproducibility of MRS temperature estimation and resilience against pathological, anatomical and developmental variation of Cho, Cr and NAA peak amplitudes.