3D P-31 SPECTROSCOPIC IMAGING OF THE HUMAN HEART AT 4.1-T

High field (4 Tesla) spectroscopic imaging offers the advantages of in creased signal-to-noise ratio and the possibility of acquiring high re solution metabolite images. We have applied a three dimensional spectr oscopic imaging sequence using a sparse Gaussian sampling method to ac quire phosphocreatine (PCr) images of the human heart with 8-cc voxels . PCr images enabled observation of the septum, left ventricular free wall, apex, and skeletal muscle. Quantitative evaluation of the 50 myo cardial voxels acquired from 10 studies of healthy adults revealed a P Cr/adenosine triphosphate (ATP) ratio of 1.80 +/- 0.32 after correctio n for saturation effects. Due to the small size of the voxels and the ability to choose the location of tile volumes to minimize inclusion o f blood, no correction for blood pool ATP was required. The calculated PCr/ATP ratio is in agreement with other studies at 1.5 and 4.0 T.