F.M. Kirby Research Center for Functional Brain Imaging, Kennedy Krieger Research Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Nat Commun. 2020 Feb 26;11(1):1072. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-14874-0.
Phosphocreatine (PCr) plays a vital role in neuron and myocyte energy homeostasis. Currently, there are no routine diagnostic tests to noninvasively map PCr distribution with clinically relevant spatial resolution and scan time. Here, we demonstrate that artificial neural network-based chemical exchange saturation transfer (ANNCEST) can be used to rapidly quantify PCr concentration with robust immunity to commonly seen MRI interferences. High-quality PCr mapping of human skeletal muscle, as well as the information of exchange rate, magnetic field and radio-frequency transmission inhomogeneities, can be obtained within 1.5 min on a 3 T standard MRI scanner using ANNCEST. For further validation, we apply ANNCEST to measure the PCr concentrations in exercised skeletal muscle. The ANNCEST outcomes strongly correlate with those from P magnetic resonance spectroscopy (R = 0.813, p < 0.001, t test). These results suggest that ANNCEST has potential as a cost-effective and widely available method for measuring PCr and diagnosing related diseases.
磷酸肌酸（PCr）在神经元和肌细胞能量稳态中起着至关重要的作用。目前，没有常规的诊断测试可以非侵入性地以具有临床相关空间分辨率和扫描时间来绘制 PCr 分布。在这里，我们证明基于人工神经网络的化学交换饱和转移（ANNCEST）可用于快速定量 PCr 浓度，对常见的 MRI 干扰具有强大的免疫力。使用 ANNCEST，在 3T 标准 MRI 扫描仪上，可在 1.5 分钟内获得高质量的人体骨骼肌 PCr 图，以及交换率、磁场和射频传输不均匀性的信息。为了进一步验证，我们将 ANNCEST 应用于测量运动骨骼肌中的 PCr 浓度。ANNCEST 的结果与 P 磁共振波谱（R=0.813，p<0.001，t 检验）的结果具有很强的相关性。这些结果表明，ANNCEST 具有作为一种具有成本效益且广泛可用的测量 PCr 和诊断相关疾病的方法的潜力。
