Synopsis

³¹P and (non-hyperpolarized) ¹³C MRS are established and often the only non-invasive techniques to measure metabolic pathways in vivo. ³¹P MRS provides information on energy metabolism and membrane turnover. At natural abundance, ¹³C MRS can be used to measure tissue glycogen storage. The use of ¹³C-enriched precursors provides the opportunity to determine fluxes through the TCA cycle and other pathways through dynamic ¹³C MRS measurements. ³¹P and ¹³C MRS can be applied to virtually any organ/tissue. In this educational, examples of applications in skeletal muscle, heart, brain, liver and tumors will be shown.