NMR IMAGING AND LOCALIZED SPECTROSCOPY

Funds are requested to establish a BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH TECHNOLOGY
REGIONAL RESOURCE to conduct magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy
research at 4 Tesla magnetic fields. Until recently, human applications
of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which has evolved to become an
indispensable tool in clinical medicine, has been conducted at 2 Tesla
or lower fields. Although, spectroscopy studies with animal models are
most successfully conducted at higher fields, such as 4.7 Tesla and 7
Tesla, human applications have also been restricted to 2 Tesla or less,
and has achieved only limited success. The University of Minnesota,
Center for Magnetic Resonance, has recently installed a 4 Tesla/125 Bore
whole body MR imaging/spectroscopy system. This is one of three 4 Tesla
systems in the world located in non-industrial research laboratories.
The availability of such systems provide for the first time the
opportunity to a) develop unique spectroscopy and imaging applications
that are either difficult or impossible to perform at lower magnetic
fields, b) bring human MR spectroscopy into the SNR domain where it can
have a significant impact on biomedical research and clinical medicine,
as demonstrated with successful animal experiments at similarly high
magnetic field strengths and c) examine the advantages and disadvantages
of higher magnetic fields for imaging and spectroscopy with humans. A
central aim of the Core and Collaborative projects, is to obtain
simultaneous information on aspects of organ function, perfusion, oxygen
extraction, metabolism, and anatomy in humans, non-invasively, and using
the same modality. Four Tesla studies with such multifaceted information
will be used to i) examine the validity of conclusions reached from
animal model studies and ii) investigate biomedical problems in humans
for which no animal models exist.