Center for Magnetic Resonance Research at the University of Minnesota is an interdepartmental and interdisciplinary research laboratory that has been funded as a Biotechnology Research Resource (BTRR) during the last thirteen years. The central research focus of this BTRR is development and improvement of methodologies and technologies for high magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and spectroscopy, and providing state-of-the-art instrumentation, expertise and infrastructure to enable the faculty, trainees and staff of several institutions in the USA and abroad to carry out basic and applied biomedical research that utilizes these unique high magnetic field (4 to 16.4 Tesla) capabilities. The general aim of this application is to seek continued support for this Biomedical Technology Research Resource so as to pursue new methodological and technical developments and maintain a National Research Resource with unique instrumentation and expertise that is not readily available elsewhere. A central and primary aim of the Core projects is to develop techniques for obtaining simultaneous information on aspects of organ function, perfusion, oxygen extraction, metabolism, and anatomy in humans non-invasively, using the unique advantages provided by high magnetic fields, such as the high signal-to-noise ratio, increased susceptibility effects associated with blood for imaging brain function, longer T1s for measurement of tissue perfusion, increased chemical-shift resolution for improved detection of neurochemicals, and the use of magnetic isotopes of biologically active atoms, such as O-17, which are not accessible easily at low magnetic fields due to their low gyromagnetic ratio. These techniques have been and will continue to be utilized to support a large community of NIH funded researchers working in neurosciences, functional brain mapping, brain metabolism, metabolic disorders, and cardiac pathology and bioenergetics.
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