Sebastian C. Niesporek, Reiner Umathum, Jonathan M. Lommen, Nicolas G.R. Behl, Daniel Paech, Peter Bachert, Mark E. Ladd, Armin M. Nagel

To assess the reproducibility of (17) O MRI-based determination of the cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen consumption (CMRO2 ) in healthy volunteers. To assess the influence of image acquisition and reconstruction parameters on dynamic quantification of functional parameters such as CMRO2 . Dynamic (17) O MRI data were simulated and used to investigate influences of temporal resolution (Δt) and partial volume correction (PVC) on the determination of CMRO2 . Three healthy volunteers were examined in two separate examinations. In vivo (17) O MRI measurements were conducted with a nominal spatial resolution of (7.5 mm)(3) using a density-adapted radial sequence with golden angle acquisition scheme. In each measurement, 4.0 ± 0.1 L of 70%-enriched (17) O gas were administered using a rebreathing system. Data were corrected with a PVC algorithm, and CMRO2 was determined in gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) compartments using a three-phase metabolic model (baseline, (17) O inhalation, decay phase). Comparison with the ground truth of simulations revealed improved CMRO2 determination after application of PVC and with Δt ≤ 2:00 min. Evaluation of in vivo data yields to CMRO2,GM  = 2.31 ± 0.1 μmol/g/min and to CMRO2,WM  = 0.69 ± 0.04 μmol/g/min with coefficients of variation (CoV) of 0.3-5.5% and 4.3-5.0% for intra-volunteer and inter-volunteer data, respectively. This in vivo (17) O inhalation study demonstrated that the proposed experimental setup enables reproducible determination of CMRO2 in healthy volunteers. Magn Reson Med, 2017. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.