Measurement of glycine in gray and white matter in the human brain in vivo by 1H MRS at 7.0 T

The concentration of glycine (Gly) was measured in gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) in the human brain using single‐voxel localized ¹H MRS at 7 T. A point‐resolved spectroscopy sequence with echo time = 150 ms was used for measuring Gly levels in various regions of the frontal and occipital lobes in 11 healthy volunteers and one subject with a glioblastoma. The point‐resolved spectroscopy spectra were analyzed with LCModel using basis functions generated from density matrix simulations that included the effects of volume localized radio‐frequency and gradient pulses. The fraction of GM and white matter within the voxels was obtained from T₁‐weighted image segmentation. The metabolite concentrations within the voxels, estimated with respect to the GM + WM water concentrations, were fitted to a linear function of fractional GM content. The Gly concentrations in pure GM and white matter were estimated to be 1.1 and 0.1 mM, with 95% confidence intervals 1.0–1.2 and 0.0–0.2, respectively. Magn Reson Med, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.