Ultra-low field NMR measurements of liquids and gases with short relaxation times.

Interest in nuclear magnetic resonance measurements at ultra-low magnetic fields (ULF, approximately microT fields) has been motivated by various benefits and novel applications including narrow NMR peak-width, negligible susceptibility artifacts, imaging of samples inside metal containers, and possibility of directly imaging neuronal currents. ULF NMR/MRI is also compatible with simultaneous measurements of biomagnetic signals. However the most widely used technique in ULF NMR-prepolarization at high field and measurement at lower field-results in large transient signals which distort the free induction decay signal. This is especially severe for the measurement of signals from samples and materials with short T1 time. We have devised an approach that largely cancels the transient signals. The technique was successfully used to measure NMR signals from liquids and gases with T1 in the range 1-4 ms.

Simultaneously detected biomagnetic signals and NMR.

We have obtained 1H NMR spectra simultaneously with high temporal resolution biomagnetic signals such as the magnetocardiogram (MCG) and magnetomyogram (MMG). The NMR spectra are acquired at measurement fields of 2-50 microT, with corresponding proton Larmor frequencies of 80-2000 Hz. Our measurements demonstrate a method suitable for MR imaging with concurrent measurement of biomagnetic signals that can provide sub-millisecond temporal resolution. The narrow line widths, reduction in susceptibility noise and enhanced spectral resolution at ultra low fields provide a new and extremely sensitive measurement method that may enable direct imaging of biological currents by detecting the phase or frequency shifts produced by magnetic fields arising from those currents. The results of our simultaneous measurements of NMR with MCG and MMG are compared to results from a current phantom to investigate the exciting potential of direct MRI of bioelectric currents.