Volume localized spin echo correlation spectroscopy with suppression of 'diagonal' peaks

Two dimensional homonuclear 1H correlation spectroscopy is of considerable interest for volume localized spectral studies, both in vivo and in vitro, of biological as well as material objects. The information principally sought from correlation spectra resides in the cross-peaks, which are often masked however by the presence of diagonal peaks in COSY, or 'pseudo-diagonal' peaks at F1 = 0 in SECSY. It has therefore been a concern to suppress these diagonal or 'pseudo-diagonal' peaks, in order to ensure that cross-peak information is fully discernible. We present here a report of our work on volume localized DIagonal Suppressed Spin Echo Correlation specTroscopy (LDISSECT) and demonstrate its performance in comparison to the standard volume localized SECSY experiment, employing brain metabolite phantoms in a gel. The sequence works in the inhomogeneous, multi-component environment by exploiting the short acquisition time to suppress undesired information by employing an additional rf pulse. A brief description of the pulse sequence, its theory, and simulations are also included, besides experimental benchmarking on two brain metabolite phantoms in gel phase. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.