Funding is requested for an upgraded console (computer and RF electronics) for our 2.0 Test 18 cm bore research NMR imaging instrument. The new console will replace aging and outdated equipment which, due to mounting unreliability, has increasingly hindered research productivity, and which has reached the practical limits to upgrading on an incremental basis. This instrument has historically formed the core of the MGH small-bore NMR research program for nearly a decade of highly productive and groundbreaking work. Current and proposed research call for increasing sophistication in the development of novel pulse sequences, high performance (high speed, high magnification, and / short TE) multislice, multinuclear imaging and spectroscopy, data acquisition and processing, computer networking, and operator interfacing. Although we have gone to great lengths to implement many elements of these features in the present equipment, we now require a total revamping with a new integrated system to meet the needs of ongoing PHS-funded programs. The latest generation of commercial instrumentation is adequate for this task. This proposal documents biomedical research projects to be carried out to the requested instrumentation, covering a unique and broad range of interests. The projects include studies of brain perfusion employing magnetic susceptibility-based contrast agents; chemical shift imaging of actate in models of stroke; biochemical correlation of MR appearance of hemorrhage; microscopic imaging of liver metastases; detection of atheroma based on spectral signatures; detection of coronary artery stenosis with flow-sensitive and high resolution imaging techniques employing adaptive motion correction; studies of myocardial perfusion with contrast agents; multinuclear imaging studies of diabetic cataractogenesis; and the direct imaging of the solid phrases of mineralized tissue. The upgraded system will continue to serve as a resource to a large community of PHS-supported biochemical researchers at MGH. It will be managed by experienced Ph.D-level personnel, administered by Internal Advisory Committee integrated into the longstanding scientific management structure for NMR research in our institution. The Hospital has committed itself to long term continued support of this equipment in particular and of the NMR research program in general. The quality and productivity of both current and future PHS-supported health research will be enormously enhanced by the acquisition of the instrumentation requested in this proposal.
