Observation of resolved glucose signals in 1H NMR spectra of the human brain at 4 Tesla.

Measurement of the resonances of glucose between 3.2 and 3.9 ppm in 1H NMR spectra from the human brain is difficult due to spectral overlap with peaks from more concentrated metabolites. The H1 resonance of alpha-D-glucose at 5.23 ppm is resolved from other metabolite peaks, but potentially overlaps with the intense water signal at 4.72 ppm. This paper demonstrates that the increased resolution at 4 Tesla permits to suppress the water signal sufficiently to reliably detect glucose directly at 5.23 ppm by 1H MRS and the estimated peak intensity is consistent with previous 13C NMR quantification.