An Alternative Scheme for 13C Chemical-Shift Imaging via Inverse Detection of Protons through an MILS (or Inverse SLIM) Technique

An alternative scheme in acquiring 13C spectroscopic images using inverse detection via polarization transfer through protons was proposed and experimentally verified by a phantom using a heteronuclear multiple-quantum coherence technique. This scheme has some features that, in special circumstances, can be exploited to one's advantages. These features are: (1) signal enhancement, a feat realizable under favorable conditions; (2) spectroscopic encoding via constant time; and (3) improvement of the time efficiency of the constant-time method via optimization by singular-value decomposition analysis. Features (1) and (2) can, in some cases, yield better sensitivity than the conventional 3DFT technique without sacrificing the most important attribute of 13C, the enormity of the chemical shifts. Such is the case because spectroscopic images acquired by the technique proposed are based on the chemical shifts of carbon, in contrast to the other more prevalent inverse-detection schemes. Feature (2) can also offer higher spatial resolution by shifting the emphasis of signal encoding from a spectral-resolution-first viewpoint to one that favors spatial resolution. Feature (3) was adopted from a method previously known as MILS (metabolite imaging of lines in a spectrum), or the inverse of SLIM, an economical scheme originally proposed by Hu et al. (1988, Magn. Reson. Med. 8, 314) for obtaining a compartmentalized NMR spectrum. Copyright 1998 Academic Press. Copyright 1998 Academic Press