NeuroImage
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Glutamate and glutamine are important neurochemicals in the central nervous system and the neurotoxic properties of excess glutamate have been associated with several neurodegenerative diseases. The TE-Averaged PRESS technique has been shown by our group to detect an unobstructed glutamate signal at 3 T that is resolved from glutamine and NAA at 2.35 ppm. TE-Averaged PRESS therefore provides an unambiguous measurement of glutamate as well as other metabolites such as NAA, choline, creatine, and myo-inositol. ⋯ This enabled rapid acquisition of TE-Averaged spectral arrays with good spectral bandwidth (977 Hz) and resolution (approximately 2 Hz). MRSI data arrays of 10 x 16 were acquired with 1.8 cm3 spatial resolution over a approximately 110 cm3 volume in a scan time of approximately 21 min. Two-dimensional metabolite maps were obtained with good SNR and clear differentiation in glutamate levels was observed between gray and white matter with significantly higher glutamate in gray matter relative to white matter as anticipated.
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In vivo white matter tractography by diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has become a popular tool for investigation of white matter architecture in the normal brain. Despite some unresolved issues regarding the accuracy of DTI, recent studies applied DTI for delineating white matter organization in the vicinity of brain lesions and especially brain tumors. Apart from the intrinsic limitations of DTI, the tracking of fibers in the vicinity or within lesions is further complicated due to changes in diseased tissue such as elevated water content (edema), tissue compression and degeneration. ⋯ We show that along the compressed fiber system, the diffusivity parallel to the fiber increases, while that perpendicular to the fibers decreases, leading to an overall increase in the fractional anisotropy index reflecting the compression of the fiber bundle. We conclude that definition of the functional network of a subject with deformed white matter should be done carefully. With fMRI, one can more accurately define the seed ROI for DTI based tractography and to provide a more comprehensive, functionally related, white matter mapping, a very important tool used in pre-surgical mapping.