{"doi":"10.1002/mrm.30015","title":"Functional activation of pyruvate dehydrogenase in human brain using hyperpolarized [<scp>1‐<sup>13</sup>C</scp>]pyruvate","abstract":"Abstract Purpose Pyruvate, produced from either glucose, glycogen, or lactate, is the dominant precursor of cerebral oxidative metabolism. Pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) flux is a direct measure of cerebral mitochondrial function and metabolism. Detection of [ 13 C]bicarbonate in the brain from hyperpolarized [1‐ 13 C]pyruvate using carbon‐13 ( 13 C) MRI provides a unique opportunity for assessing PDH flux in vivo. This study is to assess changes in cerebral PDH flux in response to visual stimuli using in vivo 13 C MRS with hyperpolarized [1‐ 13 C]pyruvate. Methods From seven sedentary adults in good general health, time‐resolved [ 13 C]bicarbonate production was measured in the brain using 90° flip angles with minimal perturbation of its precursors, [1‐ 13 C]pyruvate and [1‐ 13 C]lactate, to test the hypothesis that the appearance of [ 13 C]bicarbonate signals in the brain reflects the metabolic changes associated with neuronal activation. With a separate group of healthy participants ( n = 3), the likelihood of the bolus‐injected [1‐ 13 C]pyruvate being converted to [1‐ 13 C]lactate prior to decarboxylation was investigated by measuring [ 13 C]bicarbonate production with and without [1‐ 13 C]lactate saturation. Results In the course of visual stimulation, the measured [ 13 C]bicarbonate signal normalized to the total 13 C signal in the visual cortex increased by 17.1% ± 15.9% ( p = 0.017), whereas no significant change was detected in [1‐ 13 C]lactate. Proton BOLD fMRI confirmed the regional activation in the visual cortex with the stimuli. Lactate saturation decreased bicarbonate‐to‐pyruvate ratio by 44.4% ± 9.3% ( p &lt; 0.01). Conclusion We demonstrated the utility of 13 C MRS with hyperpolarized [1‐ 13 C]pyruvate for assessing the activation of cerebral PDH flux via the detection of [ 13 C]bicarbonate production.","journal":"Magnetic Resonance in Medicine","year":2024,"id":448243,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9569,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":414600,"name":"Junjie Ma","orcid":"0000-0001-5751-887X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":312128,"name":"Binu P. Thomas","orcid":"0000-0002-3882-3251","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":474820,"name":"Salvador Peña Martín","orcid":"0000-0002-6475-7390","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":474822,"name":"Crystal Harrison","orcid":"0000-0002-8884-2805","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":363652,"name":"Jun Chen","orcid":"0000-0002-5814-1653","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1169149,"name":"Sung‐Han Lin","orcid":"0000-0003-1384-4037","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":475968,"name":"Kelley Derner","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":313193,"name":"Jeannie Baxter","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":475965,"name":"Jeff Liticker","orcid":null,"position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":240339,"name":"Craig R. Malloy","orcid":"0000-0001-5077-0642","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":109351,"name":"Brenda Bartnik‐Olson","orcid":"0000-0002-1137-9437","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":363655,"name":"Jae Mo Park","orcid":"0000-0002-7404-6971","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1103501,"name":"Maheen Zaidi","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":61,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:02:08.018689Z","pmid":"38265104","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}