Potentials of High-Field Spectroscopy

Localized in vivo NMR spectroscopy allows to characterize the metabolic status of tissue and to study metabolic changes and metabolic pathways. Thus it is possible to improve the basic biochemical and biomedical understanding and to support diagnostic decisions. The current advances in high-field NMR spectroscopy, both for single voxel magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and MR spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) could only be achieved by combining the progress made in different areas: 1. the availability of modern high-field MR systems with improved hardware components, 2. a large number of advances in MR methodology, 3. improved and accelerated adjustments applied prior to measurements, 4. optimized data processing and quantification methods. It is the aim of this contribution to outline briefly the potentials of high-field NMR spectroscopy, the current major problems and challenges, and future improvements required. While there are several general aspects of high-field NMR spectroscopy, it is necessary to consider specific problems for animal or human high-field systems, and for different nuclei. Since the majority of spectroscopic high-field measurements are 1 H studies, this contribution will primarily focus on proton MRS and MRSI, although many consideration are also valid for other nuclei such as 31 P or 13 C.