Item

Abstract

MR is a prominent technology to investigate diseases, with millions of clinical proce-
dures performed every year. Metabolic dysfunction is one common aspect associated
with many diseases. Thus, understanding and monitoring metabolic changes is essen-
tial to develop cures for many illnesses, including for example cancer and neu-
rodegeneration. MR methodologies are especially suited to study endogenous
metabolites and processes within an organism in vivo, which has led to many insights
about physiological functions. Advancing metabolic MR techniques is therefore key
to further understand physiological processes. Here, we introduce an approach based
on nuclear spin singlet states to specifically filter metabolic signals and particularly
show that singlet-filtered glutamate can be observed distinctly in the hippocampus of
a living mouse in vivo. This development opens opportunities to make use of the sin-
glet spin phenomenon in vivo and besides its use as a filter to provide scope for new
contrast agents.