The noninvasive, quantitative ability of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to characterize small molecule metabolites has long been recognized as a major strength of its application in biology. Numerous techniques exist for characterizing metabolism in living, excised, or extracted tissue, with a particular focus on H-based methods due to the high sensitivity and natural abundance of protons. With the increasing use of high magnetic fields, the utility of in vivo H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) has markedly improved for measuring specific metabolite concentrations in biological tissues. Higher fields, coupled with recent developments in hyperpolarization, also enable techniques for complimenting H measurements with spectroscopy of other nuclei, such as P and C, and for combining measurements of metabolite pools with metabolic flux measurements. We compare ex vivo and in vivo methods for studying metabolism in the brain using NMR and highlight insights gained through using higher magnetic fields, the advent of dissolution dynamic nuclear polarization, and combining in vivo MRS and ex vivo NMR approaches.© 2019 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

In the 1990's we initiated development of high frequency gyrotron microwave sources with the goal of performing dynamic nuclear polarization at magnetic fields (∼5-23 T) used in contemporary NMR experiments. This article describes the motivation for these efforts and the developments that led to the operation of a gyrotron source for DNP operating at 250 GHz. We also mention results obtained with this instrument that would have been otherwise impossible absent the increased sensitivity. Finally, we describe recent efforts that have extended DNP to 460 GHz and 700 MHz (1)H frequencies.Copyright © 2011. Published by Elsevier Inc.

A major challenge in imaging is the detection of small amounts of molecules of interest. In the case of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) their signals are typically concealed by the large background signal of e.g. the body. This problem can be tackled by hyperpolarization which increases the NMR signals up to several orders of magnitude. However, this strategy is limited for (1)H, the most widely used nucleus in NMR and MRI, because the enormous number of protons in the body screens the small amount of hyperpolarized ones. Here, we describe a method giving rise to high (1)H MRI contrast for hyperpolarized molecules against a large background signal. The contrast is based on the J-coupling induced rephasing of the NMR signal of molecules hyperpolarized via PHIP and it can easily be implemented in common pulse sequences. We discuss several scenarios with different or equal dephasing times T(2)* for the hyperpolarized and thermally polarized compounds and verify our approach by experiments. This method may open up unprecedented opportunities to use the standard MRI nucleus (1)H for e.g. metabolic imaging in the future.

The first instance of para-hydrogen induced polarization (PHIP) in an NMR experiment was serendipitously observed in the 1980s while investigating a hydrogenation reaction (Seldler et al., 1983; Bowers and Weitekamp, 1986, 1987; Eisenschmid et al., 1987) [1-4]. Remarkably a theoretical investigation of the applicability of para-hydrogen as a hyperpolarization agent was being performed in the 1980's thereby quickly providing a theoretical basis for the PHIP-effect (Bowers and Weitekamp, 1986) [2]. The discovery of signal amplification by a non-hydrogenating interaction with para-hydrogen has recently extended the interest to exploit the PHIP effect, as it enables investigation of compounds without structural alteration while retaining the advantages of spectroscopy with hyperpolarized compounds [5]. In this article we will place more emphasis of the future applications of the method while only briefly discussing the efforts that have been made in the understanding of the phenomenon and the development of the method so far.Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A variety of pulse sequences have been described for converting nuclear spin magnetisation into long-lived singlet order for nuclear spin-1/2 pairs. Existing sequences operate well in two extreme parameter regimes. The magnetisation-to-singlet (M2S) pulse sequence performs a robust conversion of nuclear spin magnetisation into singlet order in the near-equivalent limit, meaning that the difference in chemical shift frequencies of the two spins is much smaller than the spin-spin coupling. Other pulse sequences operate in the strong-inequivalence regime, where the shift difference is much larger than the spin-spin coupling. However both sets of pulse sequences fail in the intermediate regime, where the chemical shift difference and the spin-spin coupling are roughly equal in magnitude. We describe a generalised version of M2S, called gM2S, which achieves robust singlet order excitation for spin systems ranging from the near-equivalence limit well into the intermediate regime. This closes an important gap left by existing pulse sequences. The efficiency of the gM2S sequence is demonstrated numerically and experimentally for near-equivalent and intermediate-regime cases.

We propose a robust and highly efficient NMR technique to create singlet spin order from longitudinal spin magnetization in coupled spin-½ pairs and to perform backward conversion (singlet order)→magnetization. In this method we exploit adiabatic ramping of an RF-field in order to drive transitions between the singlet state and the T triplet states of a spin pair under study. We demonstrate that the method works perfectly for both strongly and weakly coupled spin pairs, providing a conversion efficiency between the singlet spin order and magnetization, which is equal to the theoretical maximum. We anticipate that the proposed technique is useful for generating long-lived singlet order, for preserving spin hyperpolarization and for analyzing singlet spin order in nearly equivalent spin pairs in specially designed molecules and in low-field NMR studies.Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In this paper, we introduce optimal control algorithm for the design of pulse sequences in NMR spectroscopy. This methodology is used for designing pulse sequences that maximize the coherence transfer between coupled spins in a given specified time, minimize the relaxation effects in a given coherence transfer step or minimize the time required to produce a given unitary propagator, as desired. The application of these pulse engineering methods to design pulse sequences that are robust to experimentally important parameter variations, such as chemical shift dispersion or radiofrequency (rf) variations due to imperfections such as rf inhomogeneity is also explained.

We present the implementation of optimal control into the open source simulation package SIMPSON for development and optimization of nuclear magnetic resonance experiments for a wide range of applications, including liquid- and solid-state NMR, magnetic resonance imaging, quantum computation, and combinations between NMR and other spectroscopies. Optimal control enables efficient optimization of NMR experiments in terms of amplitudes, phases, offsets etc. for hundreds-to-thousands of pulses to fully exploit the experimentally available high degree of freedom in pulse sequences to combat variations/limitations in experimental or spin system parameters or design experiments with specific properties typically not covered as easily by standard design procedures. This facilitates straightforward optimization of experiments under consideration of rf and static field inhomogeneities, limitations in available or desired rf field strengths (e.g., for reduction of sample heating), spread in resonance offsets or coupling parameters, variations in spin systems etc. to meet the actual experimental conditions as close as possible. The paper provides a brief account on the relevant theory and in particular the computational interface relevant for optimization of state-to-state transfer (on the density operator level) and the effective Hamiltonian on the level of propagators along with several representative examples within liquid- and solid-state NMR spectroscopy.

Clusters of coupled nuclear spins may form long-lived nuclear spin states, which interact weakly with the environment, compared to ordinary nuclear magnetization. All experimental demonstrations of long-lived states have so far involved spin systems which are close to the condition of magnetic equivalence, in which the network of spin-spin couplings is conserved under all pair exchanges of symmetry-related nuclei. We show that the four-spin system of trans-[2,3-(13)C2]-but-2-enedioate exhibits a long-lived nuclear spin state, even though this spin system is very far from magnetic equivalence. The 4-spin long-lived state is accessed by slightly asymmetric chemical substitutions of the centrosymmetric molecular core. The long-lived state is a consequence of the locally centrosymmetric molecular geometry for the trans isomer, and is absent for the cis isomer. A general group theoretical description of long-lived states is presented. It is shown that the symmetries of coherent and incoherent interactions are both important for the existence of long-lived states.