In vivo oxygen-17 nuclear magnetic resonance for the estimation of cerebral blood flow and oxygen consumption.

To explore the feasibility of in vivo 17O NMR for the estimation of cerebral blood flow and oxygen consumption, in vivo 17O NMR spectroscopy and imaging were employed in animal models. In the spectroscopy, the changes in the 17O NMR signal intensity after the injection of H2(17)O and the inhalation of 17O2 gas were obtained every 4 seconds with sufficient signal-to-noise ratios for the quantification of cerebral blood flow and oxygen consumption. In the imaging, although the time and spatial resolutions were insufficient for the quantification of H2(17)O, 17O NMR images of rabbit brain could be obtained, indicating that it is possible to map cerebral blood flow and oxygen consumption by 17O NMR imaging.