This application requests funds for supplementing the purchase of a high field (7T), whole body scanner for improved proton and non-proton, metabolic imaging studies in humans. The application is in response to the """"""""High End Instrumentation Grant"""""""" RFA and corresponds to a proposal previously reviewed by the standard Shared Instrumentation Grant RFA panel. The scanner is intended to improve the research infrastructure of the MR Research Center (MRRC) of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). The MRRC is a research dedicated MRI facility that was established 9 years ago by the UPMC in response to the increased demand for neuroimaging studies at the University of Pittsburgh and neighboring Carnegie Mellon University. The MRRC operates two state of the art whole body MRI scanners. The scanners are FDA-approved, use the same scanning software platform and operate at field strengths of 1.5 and 3.0 Tesla, respectively. Since the inception of the MRRC in 1994, several of the investigators listed in this proposal have been engaged in research relying on the use of novel MRI imaging strategies to understand the role of specific proton and non-proton metabolites in normal and diseased human physiology. The evolution of these projects has led the PI and his collaborators into research directions that require the use of improved signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and spatial resolution for further characterizing the MRI signal from such metabolites in vivo. This in vivo characterization is, at this point, of paramount importance in order to fully understand all the issues involved in the interpretation and quantification of the images in the context of normal and disease physiology. The proposed instrument will allow this characterization process to take place in an efficient and timely fashion so that the aforementioned imaging techniques can be further optimized for operation at lower, more clinically relevant, field strengths. The chosen 7.0T scanner will allow prompt progress of the imaging projects to be served by the instrument, as its software environment will be (upon installation) identical to that of the 1.5 and 3.0T scanners already available at the MRRC.
