Measuring Deuterium Relaxation Times in Human Brain at 7T following D2O Loading

Abstract

Deuterium magnetic resonance measurements are of growing interest in the field of metabolic imaging. Four subjects were loaded with D2O to ~1.5% enrichment over a 6-week period for a parallel study of immune cell proteomics. We report T1 and T2* relaxation times of deuterium in HDO measured from cerebral spinal fluid (CSF), white matter (WM) and grey matter (GM) in vivo, using a 7T Philips Achieva scanner with a dual-tuned 2H/1H birdcage coil. 2H T1 values are significantly shorter than corresponding values for 1H in H2O, due to the quadrupolar 2H relaxation, whilst T2* values are comparable to 1H values.